I allowed myself to suspend disbelief and hope the "Support the Five-Day Weekend" billboards around Charlotte were serious. Whoever is behind it, I thought, is a lone voice of reason in a cold, cold world.

But I won't be sleeping in on Thursdays just yet. Even though the campaign's Web site encourages visitors to sign a petition lobbying Congress, the site doesn't look (surprise! surprise!) like a grassroots labor site. It's actually a front for Asheville tourism. Damn.

On the upside, several state legislators are supporting a bill that would entitle all workers in North Carolina to at least seven paid sick days a year. According to the N.C. Council of Churches, more than 40 percent of the state's workforce don't get paid sick leave. These 1.6 million people are mostly low-paid workers.