The Quiet One

Calculating vacation

Many of my vacations can be actually mapped out into a certain, almost mathematical formula. This is what my earlier vacation would look like:

• Anticipation (+ 1)
• Getting things done before leaving (- 5)
• Anticipation the night before (+ 2 and - 1 for lack of sleep)
• Boarding the dog and having to look into those sad, sad eyes (- 5)
• Packing the car with family who would rather still be on the Internet or watching TV (- 3)
• Packing the car at the family’s pace because you planned ahead and left LOTS of time (+ 3)
• Traffic on I-95 (- 3)
• Getting lost on some little country road in NC as the sun went down so I couldn’t see the teeney road signs (- 3)
• Looking for dinner on said little country road during a violent thunderstorm (- 3)
  
• A beautiful room with a comfortable bed (+ 10)
• A goat barn to explore (+ 5)
• Friendly goats and barn cats (+ 5)
• A good breakfast (+ 5)
• Plenty of time to get to the beach (+ 2)
• 5 “are we there yet” questions (- 5)
• Ice cream while we wait for the key card to get into the condo (+ 5)
• Condo at the top of a 3-story walk-up with a lot of luggage (- 5)
• View of the beach from the condo (+ 10)
• Days of child entertainment (+ 5)
• Seeing family (+ 5)
• Too much sun (- 3)
• Good eats (+ 4)
• Checking work email from the beach (- 5)
• Not getting my iPhone when I wanted it (- 5)
• The long drive home (- 4)
• The fact I wasn’t driving to Ohio (+ 3)
• 10 “are we there yet” questions (- 10)
• Coming home to a clean house because I thought to clean it before I left (+ 5)
• First day back at work, no crises (+ 2)
• Second day back at work, maybe there was one or two crises (- 5)
• Third day back at work, the stress kicks back in (-10)
• Fourth day back at work when you realize you’ve been in meetings all week and haven’t gotten anything done. (- 20)

I’m aiming for a zero or a nice positive number. Add this trip all up and you get the Post Vacation Funk integer (- 21).

The Post Vacation Funk is an itchy feeling that maybe you made a mistake with the whole coming back home thing. It generally passes back into some kind of equalibrium (with another little flare-up when the credit card bills show up in the mail at the end of the month).

I wonder if there is any way around it. Retirement, perhaps….