Unknown Artist (postcard): Piped Down (1907 - 1908)

"I've experienced worse."

The Muse proposes the getaways in this family. I'd just as soon stay home. After all the difficulties we overcame to secure this place, we might just as well stay put. She argues in favor of Down_Time, which seems a distraction and might well be one. I'll make no headway on completing any of those urgent chores from which I have diligently procrastinated all winter. My routine will have to go begging. In her defense, The Muse insists that I almost always end up enjoying my time away. "Things happen when you're out in the world," she proclaims, and I cannot counter. Still, I dread time away. I worry about my kittens' well-being even though we entrust them to the most loving and reliable sitter ever. They even like her!

I was not raised by a modern family. These days, people leave with little provocation. A family might take several vacations each year. My birth family might have taken one every three years, but only ever to visit relatives. We might foray away from home, but in most ways, vacations were far more stressful than staying home. Everything required effort when we traveled: meals, sleep, even bathroom visits. Unlike moderns, my family usually stayed in our car when traveling. It was an exception when we'd pull into a motel and never into one with a swimming pool or attached restaurant. The roads were liberally littered with road signs advertising glamorous destinations. We'd pull in behind some gas station to steal a few winks and to have ready access to restrooms overnight. Breakfast usually consisted of dry cereal served in Dixie® cups with bananas on the side. Lunch most often featured cold hot dogs.

As a professional, I mostly avoided taking my annual vacations. Absences tended to produce problems I'd just have to contend with when I returned. My reluctance to take days off irked my first wife, who'd come from a family that routinely took vacations, even those that rented cabins and featured water skiing. I'd calculate the cost of traveling somewhere and, often as not, choose to take a day or two to complete some project around the house instead. Time away seemed wasted, and time spent at home seemed the superior investment. I've never once spent a day on a sun-drenched beach and hope to continue successfully avoiding such places. I won't ski for anybody. My idea of a real vacation involves The Muse taking a work trip where I get to stay home.

This weekend, we're scheduled to get away for a little Down_Time, and I'm up early mumbling my life's worth of accumulated oaths and mantras. My denial goes into a feeding frenzy in the hours before such departures. My internal dialogue tries on dozens of good excuses as if any disqualification could even be possible once we have reservations, the likelihood of cancellation plummets. I might concede that I'm going and cease my struggling, but I'm facing Down_Time, which always feels more like a sentence than a reward—sentenced to a long weekend in San Francisco over Chinese New Year. They'll be Dragon dancers up and down Grant Street and firecrackers. There'll be dinners at my favorite places and that long, wonderful trudge up Telegraph Hill to see those murals, not to mention the Americanos at Cafe Trieste. It’s even Superbowl Sunday, and the 49ers are playing. I might even glimpse Trout Fishing In America Shorty in some North Beach back alley. I've experienced worse.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #iAlogue , #PureSchmaltz