Are we having fun yet?

By TAD BARTIMUS

Through the melancholy of autumn, through winter's dreary light, through those flirty days of early spring when the sun returns but the warmth doesn't, we all dream of summer. Of golden beaches and crystalline rivers and cool ponds so clear you can see tadpoles swimming around your toes. Soon, you tell yourself (and everybody else within earshot), soon. Vacation will come soon.

We will swing in hammocks, nap on the porch, hike happy trails. Our mind's eye frames the perfect cottage, the picture-postcard restaurant, the vista with mountain and sunset. Family and friends will be gathered around, children will play nice with each other, adults will turn off cellular phones and talk about books and art. As May gives way to June the smell of barbecue smoke announces: "It's time!"

Vacation. It's not a dream, it's a lottery.

I remember the bliss of anticipation as I stand 12th in line in the aisle of a United Airlines plane designed by engineers who surely only weighed 51 pounds and stood three feet tall. I think of this as the line ebbs and flows according to the direction of the drinks cart being lugged up and down by two very cranky flight attendants. I think of this as, having finally gotten to the front, I hear the most exasperated stewardess in America clear her throat on the intercom (the one that didn't work for the movie) and yell: "Folks. Ahem! FOLKS! The right front lavatory is out of service and we've got a cart blocking the other aisle. I suggest you just hold it."

Hold it. At 35,000 feet and two hours from touchdown. Try and tell that to a three-year-old and your mother-in-law.

Going on vacation means just that: you are GOING somewhere. You have to GET there. You cannot levitate yourself from your house to the Smithsonian. Capt. Kirk might get beamed to the Grand Canyon but you can't. You have to pack up the kids and the old kit bag (or six or seven of them, all weighing at least 10 pounds over the airline's legal limit, crammed full of snorkel fins, volleyballs, frisbees etc., etc.) and move. That means plane, train, bus, car, boat. And that means lost reservations, missed connections, two-hour waits, mile-long lines, overbooked flights and oversold hotels. Winter dreams of fantasy island, that perfect idyll, a family vacation to cherish for a lifetime, can turn out like Armageddon.

It isn't the flight attendants' fault. Or the midnight desk clerk's, or the rental car company's agent. They're trapped just like we are in an overloaded system run by numbers crunchers who either: 1. don't go on vacations themselves or 2. have become so numbed by complaints their response systems are permanently disengaged.

But what to do when everything that can go wrong (well, nearly everything) does? I'm working on this. I started yesterday, in that airplane lavatory line. I actually tried crossing my legs and holding it. When that didn't work I went to the other side of the plane, started all over again and made it in the door just as the fasten seat belt sign came on. Too bad about the 23 people behind me. As for when the Holiday Inn van driver picked me up at the airport curb at 2 a.m., and said: "We have a little problem," well, I stayed real calm. The hotel was completely oversold (again) but not to worry, I was being taken to another hotel (way) down the road where the room rate was one-third cheaper because, I discovered, the bed sagged, the sheets were ancient and the carpet was filthy but "don't worry, ma'am, Holiday Inn is paying for it."

Things finally perked up when I got to Hertz (the "exactly" company) and it was the guy IN FRONT OF ME who got the car with the dead battery!

This is only the first day of vacation; think of all the surprises still ahead of me! And please don't think I'm picking on United, Holiday Inn and Hertz; they don't have a corner on vacation snafus. No sirree bob! My friends who fly American, TWA, Delta and all those other airlines; and stay in Comfort Inns, Marriotts, Radissons, Ramada Inns and all those other hotels; and rent cars from Avis, National, Enterprise, Alamo and all those other car companies tell me they're having the same kinds of adventures. At least some of them are.

Vacation. It's not a dream, it's a lottery. You pays your money and you takes your chance. Bye bye (and don't forget to write!).

© Copyright 1998-2000 The Women Syndicate. The content on these pages is the property of The Women Syndicate and may not be used without express permission. Contact friends@tadbartimus.com