Last Monday, October 12, our nation celebrated yet another holiday.

“Another holiday?” you’re saying. “I’m not cooking for this one.”

The holiday was Columbus Day. Chances are, if you went to school, you already know about Columbus, considering your history teacher spent the first several months of the year discussing his journey in real time.

So we know that he was the first person to discover America. Besides the Native Americans. So okay, he was the first European. Besides the Vikings. For example, there was Leif Eriksson, who’d discovered Canada 500 years earlier, but nobody counted it, because… Canada.

But, for example, Columbus went on many other voyages that very few of us know about, because: a) we stop paying attention after he discovered America, and b) he was never able to top that first voyage. He didn’t discover any other worlds. Just the new one.

But at least he proved that the world was round, right?

Actually, he didn’t. First of all, he could only prove it if he actually got to Asia, which he didn’t. He told people about it, and they said, “That doesn’t sound like Asia. Are you sure it was Asia?” and he said, “No, no. That was Asia. I saw Indians.”

“Really? How do you know?”

“I called them Indians.”

“Did they have a problem with that?”

“Well, they tried to kill me. But I’m pretty sure that was unrelated.”

And anyway, everyone already knew the world was round. That’s why they didn’t freak out when, every time they sailed away from land, that land seemed to sink into the ocean.

So actually, what Columbus wanted was to find a convenient trade route to India, so he could bring home gold and silks and spices, such as curry. Though spices really seem to be a weird thing to put on that list. But Columbus wanted to find a better way to get these things and exchange them for European commodities, such as disease.

(Actually, I don’t know what the Europeans gave the Asians. But I do know that whatever it was, the Asians weren’t risking their lives to come to Europe to get it.)

Unfortunately, he didn’t end up anywhere near Asia. But luckily for him, he hit land anyway, and then spent the rest of his life convinced it was Asia. Even once he realized he’d just been landing on islands, he decided that it was Japan. Though he still kept calling everyone “Indians.”

He kept exploring for a while, trying to find his gold and spices, but he just kept finding more land. Then, in December, his cabin boy accidentally steered the Santa Maria into even more land, so he was down to two boats, and he had to leave 37 men behind so he could get back to Spain without everyone elbowing each other overboard.

Then he headed back to Spain so he could recount his adventures.

“Listen to my adventures,” he said. “The Indians there don’t even speak Indian.”

“Wait. What happened to the Santa Maria? Wasn’t that the one you were piloting?”

“Um, no. Some kid crashed it.”

“Hang on. Where’s all your gold and spices?”

“What? Oh, man! I left it there. Can I go back?”

No one asked about the 37 guys, though.

So Columbus went back to “Asia” in 1493. This time, he was given 17 ships and 1,200 people.

“Don’t lose any this time,” he was told.

“People?”

“Ships.”

The purpose of this journey was to set up a colony in the name of Spain, see if any of the 37 people were still alive (they were not), and keep looking for gold and spices, because the king and queen of Spain were getting antsy.

But the natives had nothing to trade. So he took some natives.

“What are we supposed to do with natives?” the queen asked when he got back to Spain.

“Slaves!” Columbus said.

But the queen had little use for slaves, because technically, she had a whole kingdom of slaves.

“Stop bringing us slaves!” she said. She wanted gold and silks, and he was running a ferry service.

So Columbus went back to America again, in 1498. But first he broke down in middle of the ocean for several weeks. Everyone has one vacation like that.

Then he finally got back to his colony, where, as you can imagine, everyone was mad at him for sneaking back home and forgetting to tell them. So they sent him back to Spain in chains, where he was put in prison for six weeks, and then he went back to “Asia” in 1502, where they didn’t let him into the colony. So he got back in his boat and kept exploring, trying to find a route to the part of the orient with the spices and gold already. But his boats fell apart and he ended up stranded in Jamaica for a year until someone finally came to get him and put him on the next boat right back to Spain.

He finally died in 1506. Then he came back to America in 1542.

I’m serious. Someone dug him up and brought his body back. There’s just no getting rid of some people. He was then in America until 1898, when he was brought back to Spain, except that some people in the Caribbean claim they still have the body.

But why Columbus Day, right? Because he discovered America? He wasn’t the first!

But the answer is that it doesn’t matter. Have you ever come home after a long day and discovered a huge stain on your shirt? Do you think you’re the first person who noticed it? Yet you still “discovered” it, right?

Also, while Columbus wasn’t the first person to get there, he was the first person to leave people there.

Mordechai Schmutter is a freelance writer and a humor columnist for Hamodia, The Jewish Press, and Aish.com, among others. He also has four books out and does stand-up comedy. You can contact him at [email protected].

By Mordechai Schmutter