Re-entry into reality after vegging on beach is no ray of sunshine
Here’s the problem with vacations. While you’re sitting comatose on the beach all day, reading mysteries and (as my brother says) hoping some shrimp will jump into your mouth, things at home keep chugging right along.
The mail keeps coming. The dust keeps accumulating. The lawn keeps growing. The overdue DVDs keep not getting returned. The stray loaves of bread in the bread drawer keep growing mold.
This means that when you return you have a big fat mountain of work waiting for you. Also, you have moldy bread. And dude! Where’s the fun in that?
The mail part is the worst. Can I take a moment RIGHT NOW to tell every lending institution and/or credit card company in America that seriously! There is NOTHING in my life that I want to refinance! What I do want, however, is for all you guys to STOP SENDING ME STUFF.
Here’s the deal. I never signed up to receive a single scrap of anything from you. And yet there they are — day in and day out. Dozens of envelopes. Clogging up my mailbox like plaque in a carotid artery.
Worse, I have to spend precious time handling them and sorting them and throwing them away and feeling guilty that I didn’t shred them because I don’t know how to work the shredding machine. So THEN I also have to worry that somebody will go through my garbage can in the middle of the night and piece together my unsolicited, unwanted, unshredded credit card applications so they can steal my identity (which BTW has already been stolen once) (so don’t bother) (besides which, it’s not that much fun being me).
Same goes for junk e-mail. MEMO TO SPAMMERS: News flash! I do not want any good deals on Viagra, thanks! From here on out, please forward all further offers to Raphael Palmero!
Yup. It’s true. I’m pretty grouchy right now. And I’m guessing you get all grouchy after returning home from vacations, too. That is why I have put together the following list of “tips” for people re-entering daily civilian life.
1. Put suitcase on bed and open it.
2. Take out wadded-up, dirty clothes for washing purposes.
3. Look fondly at stain on your shirt and remember sitting with your husband in that little Mexican restaurant by the sea where the lights were low and the music was soft.
4. Remember how he said he loves you, after which you took a bite of enchilada and spilled the special house sauce down your front. Que romantico!
5. Dump clothes in washing machine and remember how nice it was NOT to wash clothes for a week. Or cook meals. Or clean up after dogs. Or drive kids to their friends’ house. Or return late DVDs. Or throw out moldy bread loaves. Or forward e-mails to Raphael Palmero.
6. Try telling yourself that sitting on the beach for the rest of your life would get boring.
7. But don’t believe it. Because it wouldn’t. Especially if you have a good mystery and the shrimp start jumping into your mouth.
8. Which is why after you wash your clothes, you should put them straight back into your suitcase.
9. And put your suitcase in your car.
10. And hit the road (again), Jack. Don’t you come back no mo’, no mo’, no mo’, no mo’!
So long. Farewell. Auf Wiedersehen. Goodbye.
