New Spring Break Routine

As I predicted in my last blog, I did indeed breathe a sigh of relief as I walked through the door of my house late last night.  Actually because of a three-hour delay for no apparent reason, I didn’t actually get home until almost 3:00 AM, but I nonetheless heard myself say, “It’s good to be home.”  Again, I really think spring break could be the one holiday where people can’t wait to leave to start the trip, and then can’t wait to get home again at the end of the trip.  I probably just take those feelings to a whole new level.  At least the getting home part.

I think it has a lot to do with the fact that if I’m not in Northbrook, I’m totally lost.  I mean literally lost.  I’m directionally challenged as it is.  As I think I’ve said before I’m probably the only guy who has his home address programmed into his car’s navigation system so that I can find my way home.  Well, now put 1,000 miles between me and my “home town” and see how I get along.  It’s not pretty.  I took my son to hit golf balls at the driving range within my father-in-law’s complex and I got lost walking there.  My father-in-law’s place is laid-out in one big circle.  It’s a gated community.  And I got lost.  So the whole spring break in a far off place is extra hard for me to handle.

Then there’s the whole sun burn thing.  I burn.  I burn badly.  Now that’s because I don’t use sun screen.  At all.  Don’t believe in it.  So I’m burnt after day one.  Day two, and I’m starting to complain.  Day three, and I’m screaming like a small school girl who’s just lost her kitten.  Day four, and I’m just pissed and miserable.  Don’t even ask about day five.  We went to the beach on day five.  Not a cloud in the sky.  Lets just say that what skin isn’t peeling off is now starting to turn a nice, dark brown color.  Basically I look like a leper with a decent tan.

Then there’s the whole interruption of my normal routine.  I’m all about the routine.  It’s the routine that keeps me going.  That keeps me happy.  Frankly, much of the routine revolves around me sitting on the couch with one hand down the front of my pants while I search out movies on TV that I’ve seen countless times before (and no, I’m not really doing anything with that hand, it just honestly feels better sticking it down the front of my pants – I remember seeing the Al Bundy character on that TV show Married With Children do this, and I thought “you know what, this fucking guy is on to something”).  It’s not a complicated routine.  But that whole routine is thrown off on spring break.  The kids are there and need to be entertained almost nonstop.  For some reason they’ve gone from being lazy sods to hyperactive kids who need constant stimuli.  The wife wants to take daily walks.  The father-in-law has CNN going 24/7, and though my wife would say otherwise, I’m actually doing my best to juggle all this.

And speaking of CNN, have you ever noticed that according to CNN the world is basically on the verge of ending – is there a more depressing channel on TV than CNN?  If the world’s nations ever decide to nuke one another, I think CNN would break the story with a simple “I told you so, I knew this was going to happen.” CNN is pretty much the farthest thing from Tommy Boy and Dumb and Dumber and Black Sheep and National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, which is really the type of mindless entertainment I’m looking for. 

So instead of “my routine,” I’m the guy who’s playing video games with the kids or swimming in the pool with them or digging out sand castle moats at the beach.  And I’m trying to keep up with my wife on all those damn walks which is not easy to do, especially when she gets into “a zone” and starts pumping her arms and moving those feet (I know I’m slow, but those spring break walks with my wife make me feel bad about myself).  And I’m the guy who’s sitting on the couch (not with my hand down my pants) with my father-in-law discussing whether CNN is a biased news source or not. 

It’s a different routine come spring break, and though in the end it’s a pretty nice routine and one that I actually look forward to repeating in the future, change is not always easy for me to accept.

So I think going forward, my wife and I simply have to have an understanding about spring break.

#1 – I need to be better prepared and more easily accepting of the new routine.

#2 – She needs to slow down on those morning walks.  It’s embarrassing.

#3 – Her father needs to get a few HBO movie channels.  He’s got a pretty good sense of humor, and he’ll get a chuckle out of Tommy Boy. 

#4 – We may need to bring the XBOX 360 with us next year.

#5 – We need to buy more aloe vera gel because I’m still not using sunscreen.