Despite what the name might imply, National Day Calendar—like the days it promotes (including National Avocado Day)—is not affiliated with any governmental agency. National Day Calendar is a privately held organization based in Mandan, the seventh-largest city in North Dakota. The company’s website keeps a page for each national day it recognizes, including origin stories and suggested ways to celebrate (most often by consuming something). The design could be charitably described as glitchy and premodern. It is, at least, not the sort of entity one might expect to be capable of overwhelming the zeitgeist with phenomena like National Siblings Day. This small company seems to have found a way, despite so much heated geopolitical discourse surrounding the global rise of ethnonationalism, to get everyone talking about avocados.

The process by which a new national day is recognized is not stated on the site. There is a mailing address and phone number, but no staff listing or email contact. The site invites anyone to pitch a new “national day.” So I do. An online application involves entering my name and email address, and then making a pitch. I do this earnestly, because I’m sure that some of these days mean things to people—even National Tapioca Pudding Day and National Delaware Day. I don’t want to be the one to turn this into a farce.

I submit an application for what I deemed National Microbiome Day. The microbes interact with our immune systems and our metabolic processes to keep us well nourished and attuned to our environment, I suggested, at some length. This is an important subject. At the very least, National Microbiome Day seems as important as National Sponge Cake Day.

The automated response I received was instant and jarring: “Thank you for submitting your idea for a National Observance. Our committee is hard at work reviewing the over 20,000 applications they receive every year. If you are one of the 25 or so applications approved each year, someone will reach out to you about the next steps.”

What? Only 25 out of 20,000 applications? I can see screening out pranks and redundancies, but that would still leave thousands of legitimate proposals rejected. National Day Calendar already recognizes “almost 1700” days, I would later learn. Is there a fear that this number could get out of hand? If the number of days has not already caused them to lose meaning, how many would that take?

I do some journalistic work and uncover a lead. At the bottom of the automated email, it is signed “Smiles, Marlo Anderson. Founder, National Day Calendar.” Anderson immediately agrees to talk. He describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. He started National Day Calendar almost seven years ago, as a blog about national days. By the time a day becomes woven into calendars and memories, he noticed, no one seems to care or remember whether it is “official” or not. Or people simply forget about a national day entirely, even if it exists in a record book somewhere.