Historical February–March 2003 article. Dates, prices, services and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
Things began to go downhill shortly after I asked the first wife where she’d like to go for vacation. She’d worked hard recently — shoveling all that snow must have caused her back to be a bit sore — and I figured she needed a break.
I try to take care of her.
After all, I bought her a new snow-shovel for Christmas, one with a deep and curved bowl and a red handle, but she still was straining to throw all the snow off our sidewalk. “Give the girl a vacation,” I thought. Am I like an enlightened husband, or what?
But no sooner were the words out of my mouth when I regretted asking them. You see, the first wife and I have many things in common.
We like fine food, good wine, and adore our standard poodles, B.J. and Casper.
We like the same sports and support the same political candidates.
We both groove on Harry Potter and cheer ourselves hoarse at Stones’ concerts.
But we have quite different criteria for what makes a fun vacation. Oh, there are some things that we both think are essential to a good vacation, like being out of town and not being in town. Other than that, are preferences are quite different. Me?
I like cities, asphalt, museums, art galleries, fine restaurants, central parks, and people who speak with an accent because they didn’t grow up here.
My ultimate vacation spot is London.
We camp out at the half-price booth to get our tickets for that evening’s play, we do a museum or two during the day, or maybe a museum and an art gallery.
Then after our play at night, we walk to Chinatown for dinner and take the subway home.
It doesn’t get any better than this in my book.
The first wife? Well, let me say that if the temperature is below 80 and if she doesn’t have sand between her toes, she’s in mourning. Even in the afternoon she’s in mourning. Yes, the first wife is a beach junkie.
Her idea of high heaven is lying on the beach, the sun pounding on your back, seagulls menacing your food from overhead, and every kind of food you eat has pineapple in it. You may think I’m exaggerating, but I’ve truly had both chili pineapple and salmon pineapple. Actually, neither tasted as bad as they sound.
I first figured this our years ago when we went to Jamaica.
We were, basically, staying in some Soviet-style stalag, a vacation compound.
It was fancy and you could eat and drink all you wanted, but that was it.
The only entertainment was watching others eat and drink, mostly eat and drink too much.
We were picked up at the airport — really a dirt-road on to which planes landed, dogs running alongside barking — by a bus. “Anyone going to Camp Drinkeroonie?” the camp counselor yelled, a can of beer in each hand.
A wild yahoo, this is before the searchengine days, went up from the crowd and before I could secure my laptop, everyone else also had a beer in each of their two hands.
After that, the bus ride to Camp Drinkeroonie was uneventful, other than the three times we had to stop because someone was sick from drinking too much. Camp Drinkeroonie went downhill from there.
The highlight was that through the miracles of satellite television, I could watch the second round N.C.A.A. basketball tournament on the tube in our condo.
The food wasn’t bad, but after five days of pineapple plus, I couldn’t wait for some solid nutrition, a good old-fashioned White Castle.
The first wife, I should note, loved it.
It wasn’t the drinking that appealed to her, it was that it was hot and there was sand everywhere. She’d find the sunniest spot around to read in, setting her alarm to roll over every 20 minutes.
She came back a bright shade of hot pink, on all sides. Fast-forward, now, to this vacation. It’s snowing outside. I’d repressed Camp Drinkeroonie and foolishly asked the First Wife where she wanted to go.
In a nano-second she blurted it: Hawaii. “Hawaii?” I asked, already kicking myself.
When we were last there, a score of years or so ago, I likened it to a bowling alley with palm trees. And now we were returning. Well, we did Hawaii, this time the Big Island. I’m pleased to note that while most things change, the Rams are up and they’re down, Seinfeld is on the air and he’s off, Hawaii remains the same.
It consists of three major elements: sand, sun, and pineapple.
The combinations vary, but these three constitute over 90% of any day.
We stayed at a sort of fancy place; everyone wore shoes.
The beach was rock, not sand, so you couldn’t just recline and waste away, rolling over on schedule. You had to be taken to be beach, by van, and then you could recline and waste away, rolling over.
The closest thing we got to culture was one night when we watched a CNN repeat of the biography of George W. Bush. Honest.
But hey, I’m an enlightened husband, and if this makes the First Wife happy, I’m there for her.
I stood by her side even when she had her naval pierced and that tiny piece of butterfly jewelry inserted.
It looked painful to me, but it’s not my naval.
My Hawaiian souvenir is a can of Macadamia nuts and her’s is jewelry in her naval; go figure. I’ll never understand her, but she does one good job of shoveling the snow, cleaning, and cooking, so who am I to complain? Anyway, we’re home now, back in the cold. We’ve survived the sun, the sand still shows up intermittently in our clothes dryer (the first wife does a good job with the cleaning too), but I’ll never eat pineapple again. And I’ve learned, too. Successful people learn from experience, I read somewhere, so I have three rules that I’m committing to memory, things I learned in our 50th state. And you, dear reader, luck out, ’cause you get them for free. Rule #1: Not everyone looks good in a bathing suit. That may sell it to you, but it’s your responsibility to look in the mirror before you leave your room. Rule #2: Even the best pineapple doesn’t make warm beer taste better. That’s why God invented ice. And Rule #3: Next year I’ll decide where we’re going on vacation. Aloha!
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, February–March 2003.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times2003_02.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
