The wall-eyed, slack-jawed U.S. populace, beaten down into a state of near-catatonia by the relentlessly deadening banality of their joyless, insipid lives, dutifully trudged through the motions for yet another emotionally blank day Monday, sources reported.

“Today is Wednesday,” said Waltham, MA, resident Gregory Pafko, 50, an actuary for a screen-door manufacturing company in nearby Plovis. “Wednesday is ’Hump Day.’ If I can get through Hump Day, I’ll have made it halfway through the week.”

“Then again,” Pafko added, “every day is Hump Day, really.” Later, as he does every day, Pafko headed to the company bathroom and sat for 20 minutes with a loaded gun in his mouth. Once the shakes subsided, he removed the bullets from the gun and returned to his desk.