By Dr. Wombat
May 30, 2000, 14:25 EST

The "Weekend Virus," as it has become known, imbeds itself into calendars, dayplanners and clocks, periodically activating itself. "We've been working on a solution for some time now," says Howard Crowdouer, an IT manager for advertising agency J Walter Thompson. "We're not getting anywhere. Work just comes to a total halt. Sometimes people try to work through the Weekend, or plan around it, but they just end up frustrated at how little they accomplish. I hate to think of the damage this thing has caused."

The Weekend Virus has deeply embedded itself into the computers that control everything from phone service to security systems, financial systems to city services. The New York City Department of Public Works confirmed that even its street light timing systems have been effected. Banks and financial markets shut down worldwide, bringing the global economy to a grinding halt.

"It seems like we go through it every week," said Judy Calabrese, Senior Vice President of Wall Street brokerage Salomon Smith Barney. "Will things start up again? Can we get the world going or will we just stay stuck, unable to work? How profoundly will this affect the bottom line of companies that had to shut down?"

The GAO has been unable to accurately measure how much damage the Weekend has cost. "It seems to have been around for much longer than we at first suspected," states the GAO's official report. "Record-keeping of lost worker-hours and manufacturing slow-downs wasn't begun until recently. There are years of data that may not be able to be accurately reconstructed. There's just no way to get a good measure; outbreaks actually seem to help some sectors, such as Retail and the Beverage Industry, especially during the otherwise more costly 'Three Day Weekends.' But crime also skyrockets during these periods, as do automobile accidents, which impose an enormous fiscal burden on survivors and on the health care system. It is safe to say that the damage over the years has been incalculably high."

The FBI has launched an investigation into the matter and inside sources reveal troubling findings.

Apparently the virus began at least several years ago, alternately referred to as "Shabbat," "Shabbes" or "the Sabbath." It seems to have been the creation of a group of disgruntled Israelites, who wanted an excuse to periodically break free from their labor. Many other hackers, apparently working separately, have tinkered with the original code, which activated itself at sundown on Friday and ran until sundown on Saturday. Now the most common strains of Weekend begin at 5:00 p.m. on Friday and do not end until Monday morning. The lack of any organizing group may make locating and arresting the programmers nearly impossible, but the FBI is still pursuing the case.

Israeli embassies and government offices were contacted for comment, but no one would return any phone calls.

Some religious leaders are opposing the FBI inquiry, stating that "G-d himself embedded the virus into the popular Commandments v.10.0", and that we should not try to undo His work. "Although worldwide industrial production suffers great losses, that's not the whole story," pointed out Rabbi Moishe Hoffman. "Having that time away from the monotony of the physical world gives us the chance for great spiritual fulfillment."

"Spiritual fulfillment, my ass!" complained Bob Johnson, marketing executive and father of three. "Every damn time the Weekend comes around I have my kids screaming in my ear instead of being in school, I have to clean out the garage or mow the lawn or help with grocery shopping. I wouldn't have to do any of that [expletive deleted] if it weren't for this Weekend."

Geoffrey Washington IV agrees. "Here I am at my office, trying to get research done for this brief we file on Tuesday, and it's like swimming through taffy. There's no support staff, nothing! I might as well be home! This is costing my client thousands in billable hours, but no actual work is getting produced. What a crime! I hope the tech people can come up with a fix for this virus."

But computer scientists are not hopeful. Weekend seems so thoroughly embedded into today's technology that a solution is still years away.

Melissa and Love Letter combined caused about as much damage as one cycle of Weekend, according to most estimates, and many more seem on the way. For now, we will just have to struggle through the periodic outbreaks and hope that advances in computer technology somehow enable us to get rid of Weekend once and for all.