What is the Feast of Maximum Occupancy?
Many employers offer one or two "floating holidays", paid days off that can be used at the employee's discretion, usually for observing holidays that the employer does not observe officially. While these are usually different from vacation days in that they don't normally roll over from year to year, most people use them as an extension to their vacation days. For the last few years, I , Ryan Finnie, have been using the Feast of Maximum Occupancy to take an arbitrary day off each year, in honor of Homer Simpson in the episode "Homer the Heretic". Homer invented his own religion, and made up the Feast of Maximum Occupancy while at Moe's to get out of work one day. While I'm not going so far as to start my own religion, I believe in the virtues and morals of the Feast, and wish to celebrate accordingly.

From SNPP: At Moe's Tavern, Homer calls in to work to tell them he won't be in tomorrow due to a religious holiday. When asked for the name of the holiday, Homer looks around the barroom and comes up with "The Feast of Maximum Occupancy." Homer invites Moe to join his religion, but Moe explains, "I was born a Snake Handler, and I'll die a Snake Handler."

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History of the Feast of Maximum Occupancy
On October 8, 1992, Fox Aired the Simspons episode, "Homer the Heretic", which is the first known mention of the Feast. Research teams have searched vast resources trying to find earlier references without success, mostly because most of the team got distracted by porn on the Internet. Several years later, Ryan Finnie began using one floating holiday per year to celebrate the Feast. The celebration changed dates every year, because nobody knew the exact date of the original Feast.

On October 25, 2002, while sitting on IRC and complaining about how his employer didn't have a holiday for Nevada Day (while it seems the rest of the state had the day off), Ryan remembered that the Feast existed and had not been celebrated that year so far, and decided on November 15, 2002. Furthermore, Ryan realized the need to inform others about the glory of the Feast, and that meant a stable yearly time to celebrate. Ryan thought long and hard, took a swig of Dasani water, and proclaimed to the world that the Feast of Maximum Occupancy would occur on the last Thursday of November. Then he realized that was Thanksgiving, and settled on the 3rd Friday of November. Yeah, that'll work.

Feast of Maximum Occupancy Happenings
As the name suggests, this is a feast. People are encouraged to eat 3 square meals on the Feast of Maximum Occupancy. Some people use time off during the Feast to get their Thanksgiving present shopping done. Historically, the organizer of the holiday went to a movie or surfed the web or something. Most importantly, it should be a day of rest, like Sunday but more satisfying since it's on a weekday.

How to Participate
Simple! Go to your boss and say you want to take a day off for the Feast of Maximum Occupancy. Be sure to explain exactly what the Feast is, perhaps he/she may want to celebrate too! Tell all your friends about the Feast and show them this web site. Hang a novelty car freshener on your front door during the Feast (it's a tradition, honestly). But most of all, have fun!

Share Your Experiences
Email me at share@maximumoccupancy.org with your Feast of Maximum Occupancy experiences. I'll try to post them here and brighten everybody's day!

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