There is nothing like a vacation to ease the troubled mind. I figured out that I saved about 500 miles of car travel, pumped a good 30 percent of my last paycheck into the economy eating out and shopping for things I couldn’t buy when I worked because the stores the merchandise were in always closed before I could get there, caught up on a month’s worth of sleep, lost about a day’s worth of sweat in the heatwave of last weekend and stayed even on my diet efforts without gaining or losing.
I was going to trade up my cell phone for one with something called Bluetooth(R). I don’t know how they come up with these names, but if you had told somebody 15 years ago that you have a Bluetooth behind your ear, they’d think you needed the services of a good cosmetic surgeon to extract it. Of course it’s a piece of technology to keep drivers hands-free and (in an increasing number of states) legal, as it can be against the law to surrender one hand to holding up a cell phone while driving. I felt it would be handy if I had to call while on the highway stuck in traffic. I decided instead that, should I get in a jam, I’ll just pull over to the shoulder, park and call then. Surely a cop can’t fault me for using my cell while sitting in my car in dead traffic, right?
I didn’t go to the shore on vacation: I didn’t want to add my own ugly, sweaty, pale body to the already overwhelming masses of ugly, sweaty and pale bodies trying to find a square foot of umbrella space along the coastline. Besides, I don’t indulge in bare feet in the summer, I dread the idea of bare legs, the smell of tanning lotion irks me and there are sand flies that cause excruciating pain when they so much as land on you. Why bother?
The idea of what is now being called the “staycation” is a good one. I never understood why people buy a house costing two or three hundred thousand dollars, then spend most of their time not living in it. They spend more money hiring cleaning staff, gardeners and pet sitters, and it seems the average couple has to work at four jobs just to make ends meet. Why not just sit comfortably in your living room, slap some iced tea together and have your clean, dry and pale neighbors over for some quality time instead?
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