Our Ideal Vacation

After the complete suck that the last several weeks have been, we needed to think about something more positive. Regular vacations are often a complete ordeal. It’s the same trials and tribulations as at home only we can’t find anything, and nothing is familiar because we’re not at home.

I’m so exhausted right now that I feel like I’m going to freak out. I need to recharge in a serious way. Who knows when we’ll ever get to take any sort of vacation. But in pondering even the possibility of it, we talked about what our most perfect vacation would be right now given the state of life right now. It actually made us feel better.

So here’s our list of requirements for an ideal, admittedly non-reality-based vacation. Since we can pretty much only take vacations in our dreams anyway, why not do it right!

OK so we’d have to leave the kids with someone. But time would slow in the real world so they wouldn’t have as many opportunities to destroy property, become irreparably melted down, or for us to be disowned by whichever family members were watching them.

Transporter technology would exist so we wouldn’t have to fly or drive anywhere.

We’d go to some remote place that would rename itself Timistan on odd days and Marystan on even ones. They’d have spontaneous parades in our honor, though we may not go to any given day’s parade because that might require us to wake up. But knowing they are parading would be enough. And they would need to wear colorful, amusing, yet tasteful, outfits, preferably with plumed hats and those really big guys who drive the little tiny cars.

Chocolate would appear whenever we thought about it. Talking, let alone going to get it or calling someone for it, takes to much energy.

We’d get unlimited massages. Actually they’d just follow us around so whenever one of us fell over they could start massaging us some more.

Mary and I would have full course meals any time during the day, and we could show up in pajamas. And we wouldn’t gain any weight. We’d be able to stare at each other uninterrupted for however long we wanted to. We’d be serenaded by the L.A. Symphony.

A couple of nights, they’d hold Iron Chef contests for our amusement, and we’d get to pick the theme ingredient – like an assortment of stuff from Cinnabon.

We’d have a dunk tank for people who charge too much for autism products.

We’d go from place to place carried on a chariot by Dick Cheney clones.

Whenever I walked into a room, theme music would play. A patriotically themed video montage of me would play a la Hulk Hogan. If I posed and flexed my muscles, I would actually have some to flex.

Come to think of it, I want to be preceded into any room by a marching band. Once I arrived they could prepare for the next room. This might mean I’d need a big bathroom.

I’d be able to press a button that would illumine a sign that would summon random people to walk up to me and say something affirming and tell me that I am awesome. They would walk around me in circular orbits waiting for my signal.

There would be a giant beer fountain that I could swim in.

Days would be lengthened to 51 hours so we could sleep at least 30 of them and still have plenty of time for food, adult beverages, massages, and/or naps.

There’d be a giant movie theater just for our use. It would show any movie we wanted, including ones that haven’t been released or even thought of yet, and we’d have his and her remotes. And we could each watch different movies simultaneously if we felt like it. All animated things of any sort would be banned. In case of need, popcorn funnels would fall from the ceiling in front of us along with nozzles filled with butter.

We’d beam in musicians to play live for us. Dead musicians would come back to life for one last concert. We’d try to outdo each other by picking the most outlandish combinations. Tie breakers would involve pairing someone with Kid Rock.

James Earl Jones would read us bedtime stories. He would hang around and narrate our day to us.

I’d get to come to dinner one night on some sort of zip line dressed as Batman.
Come to think of it, I’d need to have the Emperor’s March played as I walked around, at least for a while.

Random things would be wrapped in bacon and they would be tasty.

Favorite authors would complete their next book whenever we finished their current one, even if they’re dead.

We would reclaim our high school appearance minus hair and monkey eyebrows.

Mary says, “Someone would figure out a way to make me less buoyant in a hot tub.”

We’d eat like hobbits with at least seven breakfasts and a few teas. We would not be fat, but we would be happy.

We’d lose all ability to worry. Actually, ‘worry’ and all of its synonyms and remotely related words would be banned from all dictionaries in our presence.

People would be cleaning and reorganizing our house while we were gone. And building on to it. At someone else’s expense. And the HOA would like it.

Real Buddhas would be in every doorway so we could rub their bellies. This would make us enlightened.

The section of Earth we were in would come with temperature, wind, and light dials that we could control. We could set it to sunset, sunrise, or whatever, whenever. We could have 5 sunrises and 6 sunsets a day, and in the same part of the sky if we didn’t feel like moving. Better yet, we’d have his and her dials because we can never agree on temperature.

We could dance, and actually dance well.

We’d have real life Tivo. We could rewind situations and people to amuse ourselves.

Frozen custard chocolate milkshakes would have magical restorative properties shaving decades off my life.

There would be no news channels, or even news for that matter. And by the time we got home everybody would have dealt with all their crap and psychological BS and fixed everything.

Mary would like to have absorbed the entirety of history automatically. Then she really could amuse me with completely random facts.

We might need Xanax vending machines.

Any talk about the bodily functions of children would require banishment to one of those cold places with the tentacled monsters from Star Trek.

Pink Floyd and David Gilmour and me and lasers, lots of lasers. And someone to magically give me the ability to play guitar.

We’d be followed around by mariachi bands by request. Better yet, that band would be bluegrass more than mariachi and would be called Alison Krauss and Union Station.

We’d have improv night with Robin Williams, Patrick Stewart, Chris Rock, Andy Kaufman, Ellen DeGeneres, Rosie O’Donnell, Wayne Brady (natch), and Margaret Cho. Jus cuz.

Michael Flatley et al would get on stage and do the Riverdance. And I’d have a big ol’ fire hose to provide them with the river to dance on.

Stunt doubles would do the hard parts of our day like laundry and sometimes chewing food. Anyone in Cirque de Soleil could be our stunt doubles as long as they behaved themselves somewhat.

We’d have a day or two to invite all our parent friends over so we can recharge the lot of us, complete with wine and Xanax buffets.

A full, four-part choir would order our food for us.

We’d bring in anyone who has ever annoyed us via transporter, and then after bringing Bruce Lee back from the dead, we’d have him kick their butt. We’d hang around for the Bruce Lee v. Chuck Norris main event. No DQ!

Forget 3G Internet. We’ll get like 9G^2 or something. Maybe we’ll just be the Internet for a few days, and everyone else can go read a book. And James Earl Jones will read my email to me, and Twitter, and some of my RSS feeds too if he doesn’t mind.

Our vacation compound will be protected by a division of well-armed Stay Puft marshmallow men.

Every electronic device will obey our commands whenever we begin a sentence with “Computer”.

We will get to make decrees in our new role as benevolent dictators. My first will be to command that Pluto be restored as a planet. I’ll take a long nap to ponder the second decree.

Large overhead conduits will contain the best fair trade coffee in the world. (Larry’s Beans, ftw!) It will dispense whenever I hold a cup in the air, or when I tilt my head back and open my mouth. Mary might like it if all water fountains dispensed English Breakfast.

We will be so rested and refreshed that you will be able to see our radiance from space.

And those people who said all the nice, nurturing, affirming things to us all day will be allowed to come back with us and keep on telling us we’re awesome. If one of those people could be James Earl Jones, I’d weep with joy.

If you could do anything on your ideal vacation, what would it be?

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Tagged as: Coping, Family, Humor, Marriage