Is it just me, or does everyone else's vacations tend to start the week before they leave? I will illustrate this point with an anecdote involving ice cream consumption. This whole week, I've been eating a lot of ice cream and explaining it with, "I'm on vacation!" The only problem is that I'm not technically on vacation yet; I'm sleeping at home and going to work until Friday morning. I see that vacation coming, though, and I'm eager to embrace it. As a result, I'm dressing sloppily (even for me), eating lots of crappy food (even for me), and spending a lot of time thinking about jellyfish stings (yes, even for me).
I suspect I'm not the only one here, and I think the solution is to get Congress involved. They need to mandate that all full-time, salaried employees get the week before their vacation off of work, as a time to plot, fantasize, and check the weather obsessively. (You'll see that I exempted hourly workers. My reason is simple: they're savages.)
It always surprises me how few people take actual vacations each year. As long as I have a job that comes with time off, I will spend that time off someplace great; I don't care if I have to roll into work in my infection-proof plastic bubble, thus preserving my PTO days. It's my agreement with reality: I won't complain about how lame adulthood is, as long as I'm allowed to escape it periodically in a place where the people have funny accents.
Frequent vacations tie into my theory of consumption, which states that I'd much rather spend money on adventures than on possessions. Possessions get boring and outdated. As an example, what would happen if I spent all of my money on the world's largest television? I'd like it for a while, then some Swedish biscuit magnate would get a TV slightly larger and send me spiralling into depression. Alternatively, I could spend that money having a good time in Mexico, knowing that Earth is not going to one-up my trip by opening a Super Mexico.
Also, you can't share possessions. Adventures were made to be shared. This will become evident on Friday, when I'm stung by a jellyfish and I beg a random Mexican dude to pee on my foot so the venom will dissolve. Maybe that's an urban legend, but it will certainly be an adventure.
Posted by Cody at June 12, 2007 9:27 PM