It’s a three-day weekend. Yes, another freezing-cold holiday to spend with loved ones.
There are, in my opinion, too many winter holidays. First there’s Christmas: OK, we enjoy that moderately. By New Year’s Eve, everybody is restless. Despite our grown-up status, there is regressive whining: “What can we do now?”
And then the three-day weekends start. First it’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day weekend. And then it’s Presidents’ Day weekend. Forget the people we’re honoring: long weekends aren’t always good for your mental health. Yes, experts say you get more family time, but whether that’s a good thing or not depends on the family, doesn’t it?
A friend and I made a pact that if things got too crazy we’d meet at the coffeehouse. We went, we saw, we conquered. The line was almost out the door. She sniveled, “I was literally moving a plastic truck across a ’60s board game when Josh threw a tantrum about the rules.”
Oh, lord. Don’t get me started. Her husband Josh is forty, not four. In his defense, he was arguing with their four-year-old son. It’s not much of a defense.
As for me, I’d watched an episode of Tidying Up with Marie Kondo and then I’d cleaned the kitchen. And it turned out I was allergic to the strong cleanser, so my hands were red and bleeding. I decided not to go to the gym since my hands were open wounds. I could have placated my husband by pretending to go to the gym, but I’m neither four nor forty, so I told the truth: “I’m going to the coffeehouse.”
Did Milton-Bradley know that Game of the States, a cute board game where you buy and sell “products” and haul them in plastic trucks from state to state, would cause such a ruckus? Did Marie Kondo know she was dooming me to eczema and Band-Aids?
I can’t take another holiday. Tomorrow I’m staying in bed.