Published Thursday, May 12, 2011 9:44 AM
Updated Thursday, May 12, 2011 9:45 AM
I will add the following missive to that proverb: “Do not walk beside me, either, for that matter. Just stay away and leave me the h*ll alone, already.”
So if you haven’t figured it out by now, I need a vacation. Thankfully, I’m going to fulfill that need very shortly.
I say thankfully because it won’t be long before I’m sitting in a jail cell for committing a violent felony if I don’t get away from real life real soon.
I’ve got this theory that when you’re off, you should be off – that’s the whole point, right? Why carry a cell phone, for example, if you don’t plan on using it for anything other than ordering pizza in a foreign country? Why make yourself available at all? You already have to do a lot of that during time that is supposed to be normal time off, like nights and weekends.
Yet, here it is, a Sunday afternoon, and I’m writing this. But I’m doing it for a higher purpose: I’m not going to write anything else for a good little stretch after, say, Thursday morning.
I will be long gone. Out of sight, out of mind, and not a moment too soon.
It’s vacation time, and when it comes to my time off, I’m very old school. Simply stated, I’m not available. To anyone. For any reason. Period. Air Force One could crash land in the backyard and I wouldn’t so much as put down my beer unless I was already getting up to get another one.
By the time you read this, my cell phone will very likely be squatting, mute and disgruntled, in the junk drawer of the kitchen. My computer will remain unplugged sitting quietly in its canvas bag awaiting my return. The home phone, which I never answer anyway, probably won’t notice a difference in the state of affairs. And any mail that I get that does not start off with the phrase, “pay to the order of …” and ends with several higher end digits all sitting to the left of the decimal point will not get so much as a glance until sometime next week.
That’s what time off is about. You make a commitment to relax and forget about everyone and everything. You innately understand that whatever horrors of the world you were contending with yesterday will be there tomorrow when you get back.
As they say, the worst day on vacation is better than the best day at work. So when I come back, assuming I do – I keep threatening to build a cardboard pied a tierre up in the hills somewhere and raise goats and honeybees until the first day of my dirt nap – I’ll tell you all about it.
In the meantime, if you see me around town at all this week, be afraid. Be very afraid.
No, scratch that. You don’t have to be afraid.
Just be at a distance.