Modern workers such as myself are big on our vacations.   Unlike the serfdom of times gone by, where obtaining permission to leave the ditch to pee behind a bush was considered “getting away from it all”, we spend a lot of time, money, and thought into exactly how we are going to spend a week or two this year pretending we don’t have a house, job, bills, or responsibilities.     The possibilities for doing so are numerous and nowadays almost nothing is outside of a couple of flights, sleeping on a well-traveled bed in a small room for some ungodly sum, and spending the day traipsing arounds and gawking while the locals are all thinking, “Man, when I get a vacation, I am getting the Hell Out Of Here.”

The rest of the year we are usually content to work and beat the living shit out of ourselves in doing so simply so we can obtain those few short days of bliss in a foreign clime.     We try to buck it up and say that we love our jobs, but the truth is, we don’t; if we truly loved our jobs, we wouldn’t insist on being handed a check a few times a month.    We are working hard so we can spend nights, weekends, holidays, and Vacation Time™ doing…NOT work.

Big, big trips, of course, cost an awful lot of time, money, patience, good luck, and planning, and if any one of those things goes awry, you will quickly find yourself at a loss for figuring out what to do with your precious Vacation Time™ because your plans just hit a rotating air movement device at high speed and shot off in multiple directions.

Such it is with our plans this year or, at least, my plans for my own precious Vacation Time™ which I’ve been saving up since January in anticipation of putting it to good use at the end of the year.   Instead of taking time off during these past warm, sunny summer months, spending time outside or traveling or having fun, I’ve been working, and sometimes working a lot, just so I can make the most of two, maybe 3 weeks at the end of December by taking a well-deserved (in my mind) trip to Australia with my family to see all of our relatives and friends over there in that distant, poisonous-animal-filled land.

Wouldn’t you know it that life has come along and blown in all to hell, eh?  *sigh*

Money being the fickle and transitional thing that it is has chosen to waft its way out of my grasp for the time being and we find ourselves within a month or so of buying the necessary travel for this trip and — utterly broke with little chance to gain even a small percentage of the funds required for our amusements.     And be ye not disillusioned about how much these sorts of trips cost, for verily they causeth much strain upon thy pocketbook.   But we’ve done it before, the cause is good, and family, friends, mince pies, sausages, pasties, schnitzels, chips, Tim Tams, seagulls, spiders that would rather kill you than look at you, sandy beaches, and the smell of the ocean are all more than worth the price of admission.    One needs only to find themselves gazing out over the infinite azure expanse of waves and the stresses of finances just…melts away.

So, now I’m stuck.   My vacation time is a use-it-or-lose it sort of proposition and it’s all going to have to be taken in the ass-end of the year when weather is questionable at best and places like Iowa are not where you want to be.    The thought of staying home for the entire time and spending it doing domestic activities like cleaning, painting, and working on freelance jobs makes me so depressed that I could sit in a corner and impale my forehead on a stick.    The term, “staycation,” might as well be a Barry Manilow record on repeat for all the comfort it gives me.   And yet, of course, the primary factor in canceling a good vacation is still present, so I cannot take off for Aruba, either.   I will have to think and be mightily creative about this or I will end up in a very sorry state by the end of the year.

And just to head off all of you who are going to comment and say helpful things like, “you’re lucky you have a job to take vacation from” and “it could be worse” and “I hate Australia; damned good thing you’re not going”, I say this:    I get ya.   And don’t think I’m not thankful for the opportunity to work and support my family.    That isn’t what this is about, it’s more about disappointment and trying to figure out how to recharge myself when the options are limited, so I can go back to doing exactly that…working and supporting my family.    Some people aren’t lucky enough to be in this position in the first place and I’m sorry.

So, there it is…barring a miracle of impressive proportions (hey, I’m still up for the Lottery if the fates are), this is where I sit and, apparently, where I’m going to stay for awhile.     I’ll work and work and add brochures about sunny places and tiki bars with scantily-clad women to my bathroom reading and sometime, someday, I might manage to unplug myself and enjoy a day or two for once.