Taking it easy. Too easy.

Hurry Up and Relax

By Rick Horowitz

"Wimps," she says. "I'm on vacation with a family of wimps!"

She has a point. It's not that these people she's stuck with for a week, these people she's so ready to disown, don't like it up here, where the trees rustle and the breeze blows off the water. They think it's great. It's not even that they don't appreciate all the fun possibilities staring them in the face everywhere they turn.

It's just that they don't feel they have to appreciate all the fun possibilities staring them in the face everywhere they turn.

She doesn't see it that way.

"Can we rent a boat?" she wants to know while they're still unpacking their bags. "We just got here," they say -- they'd like to relax a bit, unwind. "Maybe tomorrow," they say.

"Then how about miniature golf?" They go play a round of miniature golf.

"Can we rent a boat?" This is the next morning -- their search for the perfect pastry has taken them within sight of a dock. "We don't have any sweaters with us," they point out. "We'll freeze out there."

"Then how about bikes?" They rent bikes. It's a perfect day for bike riding; before they're close to finished, she wants to make sure they'll do it again later in the week -- or even twice. In the meantime, she hits the pool. They thought perhaps they'd read a book.

"Can we see the fireworks?" There's a fireworks show scheduled for that evening. There are also thunderstorms scheduled for that evening. Severe thunderstorms. All evening. She's undaunted.

"It's not raining that hard," she says. And: "They can do them in the rain." And: "What if it stops?" By which she means: "If there's a 15-second break in the downpour any time in the next three hours, are you willing to drive ten miles to a certain shoreline to plant your shivering butts on wet sand, dodge lightning bolts and watch absolutely nothing?"

They're not especially keen on the idea. She can't understand it. They're on vacation -- they should be doing things! She sees floods as a challenge, takes tornado warnings as a personal affront. They're hoping to return from vacation refreshed and renewed. Also intact.

They've got a little list -- on the kitchen counter, where they can see it every time they come back from doing something, and can remember all the things she still wants to do. She wants to go go-karting. (They go go-karting.) She wants to go to a drive-in. (They go to a drive-in.) She wants to go to the play and to the fish boil and to the ice cream place and to the restaurant with the goats on the roof.

Check. Check. Check. Check.

And more miniature golf, squeezing in the putts between the thunderclaps. And more biking. And --

"Who wants to get some exercise?" she asks one night, the whitefish and boiled potatoes just beginning to be digested. She wants to go jogging. They don't want to hear it.

"You know what we haven't done?" she asks just moments later, and they crouch in the corners for protection. "Horseback riding!"

And always -- always -- the boat. "You promised!" she says. That's not exactly what they did. What they did was weasel. Now the week's almost over, they've weaseled long enough; they have to come clean. There's something about taking a boat out on a large body of water that they just don't like: Drowning. Also running aground, flipping over, breaking up, drifting away. But mostly drowning.

"Wimps!" she says.

"Sorry," they say. "How about a picnic?" She's not going to win this one, she can tell. A picnic will have to do. So she's a couple of checks short of perfection -- it's not the end of the world. After seven days, after all, she has gotten most of what she needed from a vacation: total, perpetual motion.

After seven days, they know what they need, too.

They need a vacation.