People believe vacationing is a great way to relax, unwind, and leave behind everyday worries.
How wrong they are. Most people come back from vacation needing another vacation, only now, they’ve got huge credit card bills to pay, strange insect bites, and are 10 pounds fatter than when they left.
Let’s watch this play out. You go away for a week and spend the first day unwinding and decompressing. After dinner, you try to sign into one of your streaming accounts at the hotel or Airbnb (because nothing says vacation like watching the same bad TV in Cancun that you would watch at home). But because you left your computer at home, you don’t have any of your passwords. So, you download a 28-dollar movie that you and your loved one both end up hating.
Now that you’ve unwound, it’s “letting go” time. You sign up for a Yoga class or splurge on a $300 hot rock massage, given by a newly sober ex-tattoo artist who, while massaging your forearm, lets you know that’s where they used to shoot up speedballs.
Moments before the massage is done, Mr. Ex-tattoo drops a 250-degree hot rock on your lumbar and sacral which causes your back legs to buckle so fast that you kick yourself in the back of your head — a yoga move you thought you were incapable of.
Moments before the massage is done, Mr. Ex-tattoo drops a 250-degree hot rock on your lumbar and sacral which causes your back legs to buckle so fast that you kick yourself in the back of your head — a yoga move you thought you were incapable of.
Before you leave, your new sober buddy convinces you that you are dehydrated and that your skin is about to fall off. So, you purchase $600 of Israeli moisturizers.
Now it’s the afternoon and it dawns on you you’ll need to eat dinner again, so you spend the next few hours trying to book a reservation at the hottest restaurants in town, only to find out their only openings are at 10:30 pm. So, you say, “What the heck, I’m on vacation.” You eat a late dinner and find that when you try to go to sleep, the unfamiliar spices used in your $200 risotto keeps you up with severe heartburn and burns twice as bad when exiting the next morning.
As you leave your delightful stay, you forget that you had finally gotten the passwords to your streaming services, and now you’ve forgotten to sign out. So, for the next few years, whoever stays at your rental enjoys Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu on you.
Now, if that weren’t enough great vacation for you, you always have the option to experience the joys of vacation on steroids by traveling like a Kosher Jew. Non-Jews, God bless them, do not have to pack up half their kitchen for a few days in Palm Springs. Non-Jews travel light. A credit card, a tank of gas for the motorcycle, a sidecar for the kids, and off they go.
But if you happen to be a God-fearing Kosher Jew, you better be able to lift a 150-pound ice chest filled with half a cow, and medications that need to be chilled for every disease under the sun. Depending on the time of the year, Jews may need to bring a humidifier.
Years ago, when our Christian neighbor saw how much stuff we were packing into the car, he asked us where we were moving to. Scrutinizing the open car trunk, he then quipped, “Don’t the restaurants you go to have their pots and pans?” When he asked about our Shabbos lamps, I slammed the trunk of the car.
Once you hit the road, assuming you’ve got kids in the backseat, it’s time for the games to begin. The first argument starts when nobody wants to sit in the middle. Then, when they find out they need to ride the 200 miles with a suitcase and charcoal briquettes on their lap because one of them had to bring a moonbounce that they won’t ever use, all hell breaks loose.
On the way down, you hear that the good weather you were promised is gone and that it’s going to pour all weekend.
Even though it’s raining, you take the kids to the pool. When you get there, you find that the pool has been drained because some three-year-old went in with a full diaper and it fell off in the water.
Around the fourth day, and after a nice quiet Shabbos, one of the kids has a fever and starts throwing up, so it’s off to the local Urgent Care where you’ll be sitting with all the other religious vacationers, waiting to find out what local disease your child has contracted. Because the diagnosis is strep, all the museum and amusement park tickets you purchased in advance can now be thrown into the garbage because stupid you bought all nonrefundable tickets.
The last two days are when you attempt to do everything you missed out on. This leaves you exhausted and drained, but hey, isn’t that what vacation is for?
It’s now the last day. You are all packed and ready to head home. It’s time to start worrying about what you have to do when you get home. You start thinking about work, the phone calls you will need to return, and all the bills that need your immediate attention. And of course, all the work and doctors’ appointments you lined up, starting the minute you get back.
If you’ve flown, you’re now at the airport waiting for your six-hour delayed flight home. That’s when the alarm company calls and tells you that, because of all the mail and packages piled up at your front door, your house has been robbed. When you ask your oldest son if he told the neighbor to watch out for the mail and packages as you asked him to do, he says he forgot. Vacation perk!
Now you’re back home and while tucking the kids into their beds, they thank you and tell you they had a good time and would like to go back to the same place again next year.
With a scratchy throat and a fever of 101°, you realize that by tomorrow, you too will have strep and must stay home from work for the next two days. It’s then that you realize you’ll be home alone for most of the next 48 hours. That’s when a big smile comes across your face because you realize that now is when the real vacation starts.
Mark Schiff is a comedian, actor and writer, and host of the “You Don’t Know Schiff” podcast. His new book is “Why Not? Lessons on Comedy, Courage and Chutzpah.”
