The Day When Nothing Happened, by Leigh Raper
August 3 is most well known in the United States as The Day When Nothing Happened. In the United Kingdom and the European Union and parts of Eastern Europe, it is also known as Nothing Day. The Day has never been recognized for unique remembrance in Canada, as it has never been determined to be remarkable.
CONTENTS
1. ORIGIN
1.1 EVENTS OF THE DAY
1.2 DISCOVERY
2. RELATED RESEARCH
3. CELEBRATIONS & EXPANSION
4. REFERENCES
ORIGIN
The Day When Nothing Happened was first experienced by Alexandra Newcombe of Northvale, New Jersey. At the time, Ms. Newcombe was a county clerk in Bergen County Clerk’s Office located in Hackensack, New Jersey.
On the morning of the first The Day When Nothing Happened, Ms. Newcombe arrived at her office without encountering any traffic, construction, or auto accidents during her commute. She parked in her assigned spot and rode an empty elevator to the fifth floor. Ms. Newcombe began her workday as usual, expecting to receive multiple requests, via email and phone, from co-workers in the Clerk’s office, other county employees, and residents of Bergen County. By lunchtime, Ms. Newcombe noticed that she was receiving no requests at all. Also, significantly for County Clerks in New Jersey, she was not receiving any complaints. While Ms. Newcombe’s job primarily involved the processing and recording of marriage licenses for Bergen County, she also handled a significant number of constituent complaints related to not just marriage licenses but also real estate transactions and permits for parties.1 The day before she had resolved two expedited service requests for marriage licenses and processed an appeal for the denial of a permit for a food truck rodeo in Hackensack. On August 3rd, there were no complaints to process and no appeals to review. Her email inbox was empty. She sent a message to the County Information
Technology coordinator, D’Wayne Anderson. Anderson replied an hour later: “All good. Working fine.” Newcombe hit refresh multiple times and still no email appeared. She decided to check in with her colleagues in the Clerk’s office. Finding only empty desks, she remembered that the other clerk was at a training session in Trenton and that their boss, the County Clerk himself, was on vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. This meant that on that day, August 3rd, Alexandra Newcombe was the only clerk on duty, the only clerk at all, in Bergen County, New Jersey.
Lunchtime on The Day That Nothing Happened saw Ms. Newcombe alone in the breakroom with the tuna salad sandwich she had brought from home. She had a zip-loc of red grapes and another with baby carrots. She emptied a package of Pink Lemonade Crystal Lite into her New York Giants water bottle.2
During her forty-five minute break, she read three chapters of a thriller novel and flipped through an old copy of People Magazine.
After lunch, Ms. Newcombe continued to monitor her email and inbox, having a brief interruption when Vinny Ragazzi rolled through the office with his mail cart. Mr. Ragazzi tossed a bundle held together with a rubber band onto her desk. The smaller than usual stack revealed no official Bergen County business, just a mass mailer advertising solar panel installation, and an office supply catalogue from Staples.
At 5:30 PM, Ms. Newcombe turned off her task lamp, retrieved her lunch bag from the refrigerator in the break room, and unlocked the empty drawer in her desk where she stowed her purse during the day.
She left her office, rode alone in the elevator to the ground floor, and stepped into the late afternoon sun.
Ms. Newcombe’s car was warm, but not hot. She opened the windows and enjoyed a pleasant breeze. On the ride home, she listened to a true crime podcast. At home she let the dog out and made dinner. She and Rusty ate together in an amiable silence before settling on the couch to watch Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy. Her home phone rang once with an automated message about a tropical storm that would be arriving between 3:00 AM and 5:00 AM. At 10:00 PM Ms. Newcombe went to bed.
DISCOVERY
The person credited with the discovery of The Day When Nothing Happened is Cynthia Ramos, an anthropology grad student who was interning at the Bergen County Clerk’s office. Cynthia wasn’t working on The Day but when she arrived at the office the following day, she asked Ms. Newcombe how it had been the day before. Ms. Ramos was shocked and intrigued by Ms. Newcombe’s recounting of August 3rd, taking copious notes. Those notes were incorporated and expanded and became the foundation for her groundbreaking thesis “The Quickening of the Ultimate Bureaucracy and Societal Authority Norms: The Day When Nothing Happened.” 3 Ms. Ramos posited that The Day occurred because Bergen County, New Jersey had reached the apex of administrative government functions when the society and its people were so conditioned to require permits and approvals that, in an irony she wasn’t entirely able to explain4, no permits or approvals were actually required.
RELATED RESEARCH
Since Ms. Ramos’ seminal work, other scholars have developed various theories5 to explain The Day based on workload, lack of proper supervision, or a late postal delivery. None have been conclusively proven.
CELEBRATIONS & EXPANSION
The first known ‘celebration’ of The Day came the following year, when Ramos and her housemates threw a Nothing Happened party. Footage from the party went viral online and within two years day-long celebrations, similar to the Burning Man festival, became commonplace.6 Now, in countries where The
Day is recognized outdoor bar-b-ques and street parties are the norm. Traditionally, hosts will serve tuna, carrots, and Pink Lemonade. For those who do have to go to work, many treat their routine tasks as optional in remembrance of Ms. Newcombe, who retired from the Bergen County Clerk’s Office in 2019 and is currently working on her memoir.
REFERENCES
Role of the County Clerk: https://www.naco.org/sites/default/files/documents/Role-of-the-County-Clerk.pdf
Citation needed.
Ramos, Cynthia, “The Quickening of the Ultimate Bureaucracy and Societal Norms: The Day When Nothing Happened.”
Ibid.
McDonald, Evan, The Day When Nothing Happened For Dummies, Everyday Press 6 @SindyCation, Off The Hook Nothing Day Houseboat Rave!!! Retrieved via vine.com.
Leigh Raper writes both fiction and essays often focused on pop culture, television, or amusement parks. Her work has appeared at Atlas Obscura, mental_floss, Refinery 29, and Palm Springs Life.