Need a Vacation Before Vacation

Friday, September 28, 2007

Page 15

AT THE SIDEBAR (Column)

Need a Vacation Before Vacation

By J’AMY PACHECO

Is there anything more difficult than getting ready for vacation?

By the time you read this, I should be nearly finished with mine. If, that is, you ever actually get to read this. At the rate I’m presently going, I’ll still be writing this long after my flights have connected and my reservations have been given up as abandoned.

I hope that when you read this, I’ll be at Disney World in Florida. It’s long been a dream of my family to go, and we finally got it together enough to book a hotel room and flights. For the same week, even.

But since the clock started ticking down to departure time, few things have gone the way we planned.

It started out well. We bought books; we ordered maps. We made lists. Lots and lots of lists. We got off to a very good start.

As a journalist, I should have been aware of the scientific fact that time moves faster as a deadline approaches. But I blissfully ignored that fact until things started not getting done on time.

Take my daughter’s spending money. For years, she has been saving up money for her dream vacation to the other coast. She has laboriously recycled cans and bottles, putting whatever she earned into an enormous coffee can for The Big Day.

Of course, grandparents, aunts and uncles like to contribute to her efforts, and often send her home with pockets full of their loose change. The net result is that my daughter has a big can that weighs as much as a Humvee.

There’s not an airline in the world that is going to let her get on the plane with a potential weapon like that, so the coins need to be rolled and redeemed at the bank. We’ve got the coins, we’ve got the wrappers, and we’ve got the bank.

Regrettably, what we haven’t had is the time to put them all together. Now we’ve got a can of coins that isn’t going on vacation with us. In desperation, I told my daughter I’d just give her bunch of money and she could pay me back when we return.

Fortunately, she went along with that.

Another complication is the fact that we don’t exactly travel light. At the moment, my “big” suitcase is parked halfway down my staircase. Since it weighs almost as much as the can of coins, it’s too blasted heavy for me to carry, and I’m afraid if I drag it, I’ll be crushed. I may have to go without it.

That may not be a problem, since I never did get a chance to iron anything. Because I got hung up on a work project that took a lot longer than I anticipated, I ended up rolling up our clothes and hoping the wrinkles would work themselves out somewhere over Texas.

As if travel preparations alone weren’t challenging enough, we decided to leave from a city two hours away. We have a lovely, convenient airport about 30 minutes from our house, but nooo. We’re flying out of Palm Springs. The plan was for us to overnight with relatives and go to the airport together.

Since we made those complex plans, naturally, half of our party no longer can make the trip – meaning we’ve lost our driver. Now we’re traveling two hours to someone’s house, only to be picked up by a strange person in a taxi cab at 4 a.m. (If I’m not here to write next week’s column, you’ll know why.)

I’ve been so worried about everything that I think I’m getting worry lines.

Maybe I’m just vacation-challenged. If somebody says “Disneyland,” I can be outta here in five minutes or less. If my brother calls and says, “Come spend the weekend with me and the kids!” I can be on my way within 10 minutes – packed, and with lollipops to boot.

I know we’re going to have a great time, and I’m really, really happy that we’re going. I just wish we didn’t have to go through the “getting there” part first. Fortunately, that’s the part few people remember – which is why we continue to book vacations after doing it once.

Of course, it will be over before we know it, and we’ll be back and having to get ready for work and school the next day. I have no idea what any of us will wear – I won’t have time to iron then, either.

I guess we’ll just have to buy some Disney t-shirts, keep them clean, and hope they don’t come out too wrinkled.

On the other hand, wrinkles might make a pretty interesting — and cheap — souvenir.

I just hope they’re not all on my face.