Big Dave calls me and he is giggly and kinda nauseating at the same time. "Are you excited!" he yells into the phone and I can tell he is spitting. Our vacation starts tomorrow and we are flying to Jamaica. I think about his question and then say, you know, I'm really not the excitable type. Honesty is always the best response and in most cases, not the desired one. The last time I can remember being excited was 1971 when I woke up and found my bed on fire. That's the level of intensity I require.
I don't go into vacations easily. I find it difficult to relax on cue and then there's the fact that I like my routines and schedules. Without them I fear I may disappear, my obsessive-compulsive psyche will whirl feverishly for a few moments and then topple over like a spent top.
And then there's the problem of the all-inclusive resort. Not my first choice for vacations but the big guy is footing the bill so I won't be complaining. For one week we will be surrounded by alcoholic overweight misfits mostly from the continental Midwest who will begin drinking at 10 a.m. and many have brought their own 64-ounce mugs for the bartender to fill because those eight-ounce glasses are for amateurs, don't cha know. To keep the alcohol from corroding their intestines they will make numerous trips to the all-day buffet gulping down deep-fried anything prepared by the island chefs specifically for the American tourists. And they talk and shriek from their stools at the pool bar and I never see anybody leave to use the restroom and I avoid swimming in those pee-infested waters and stay on the other end of the pool.
"All around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding - shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people should be kept at home, I thought; lock them in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign art film; and if they still aren't satisfied, send them into the wilderness and run them with vicious dogs." The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson
My man, Hunter. I'll leave my watch by the pool side so I can time my laps and my inebriated co-vacationers will look at me with just a touch of contempt for I am reminding them of everything they came to this island to forget. I am the odd duck at the party but then I am this way most places. Shortly after my 30th birthday I stopped worrying what other people were thinking and it's been a much smoother ride because of that.
I don't go into vacations easily. I find it difficult to relax on cue and then there's the fact that I like my routines and schedules. Without them I fear I may disappear, my obsessive-compulsive psyche will whirl feverishly for a few moments and then topple over like a spent top.
And then there's the problem of the all-inclusive resort. Not my first choice for vacations but the big guy is footing the bill so I won't be complaining. For one week we will be surrounded by alcoholic overweight misfits mostly from the continental Midwest who will begin drinking at 10 a.m. and many have brought their own 64-ounce mugs for the bartender to fill because those eight-ounce glasses are for amateurs, don't cha know. To keep the alcohol from corroding their intestines they will make numerous trips to the all-day buffet gulping down deep-fried anything prepared by the island chefs specifically for the American tourists. And they talk and shriek from their stools at the pool bar and I never see anybody leave to use the restroom and I avoid swimming in those pee-infested waters and stay on the other end of the pool.
"All around us were people I had spent ten years avoiding - shapeless women in wool bathing suits, dull-eyed men with hairless legs and self-conscious laughs, all Americans, all fearsomely alike. These people should be kept at home, I thought; lock them in the basement of some goddamn Elks Club and keep them pacified with erotic movies; if they want a vacation, show them a foreign art film; and if they still aren't satisfied, send them into the wilderness and run them with vicious dogs." The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson
My man, Hunter. I'll leave my watch by the pool side so I can time my laps and my inebriated co-vacationers will look at me with just a touch of contempt for I am reminding them of everything they came to this island to forget. I am the odd duck at the party but then I am this way most places. Shortly after my 30th birthday I stopped worrying what other people were thinking and it's been a much smoother ride because of that.
2 comments:
Why are people waiting until 10:00 a.m. to start drinking?
No wonder the world hates us.
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