There’s Nothing Wrong with it … (with apologies and props to Jimmy Buffet)

I’m on vacation. It’s been a long time coming and very much needed, not only for me but even more so for my wife, Gayle. It’s been a long and rough year and a half. Family deaths, illnesses injuries and job struggles all piled on top of the regular zoo we call life has left us as Crosby, Stills and Nash put it, “wasted on the way.” So, we finally took the cues and opportunity and got the heck outa Dodge.

We headed south since we live in the north and wanted something called sunshine and warm. For those not familiar with winters in Minnesota, they are not only long and cold, but they are dark. When one talks of cloudy in Minnesota, they are referring not to broken billowy/puffy formations of cartoon like shapes, they are talking about a big heavy, dark blanket thrown over all of existence not only blocking any natural occurrence of light, but actually sucking light from the surrounding world and one’s soul. There is a little known field of scientific study known as Meteorolical Physics which is working to define a new state of matter called a “Grey Hole”. That field of study, of course, is centered in Minnesota.


All Minnesotans, at the first signs of spring exit their burrows resembling albino moles squinting at the light that has finally won the battle to shine forth. Don’t misunderstand; people of color actually turn a sickly pale for their own skin type, as well in Minnesota. The result is that we all look and feel sickly by the end of the annual “winter of our discontent.” But if one is lucky, or has the wherewithal, one sneaks a trip toward the more tropical latitudes for a brief taste of what may or may not come in the northern summer months ahead. Gayle and I did just that.

So here we are, inhabiting a rented cottage across the road from the beach on the beautiful Gulf of Mexico, just chillin’, sluggin’, and generally taking it easy. That’s what we wanted. That’s what we came here to do, and we have no misgivings concerning the matter … or at least we didn’t until we started sitting on our small patio, facing the ocean and just vegging out. You see, the problem is, a public walk way passes a few yards away from said patio. So as we sit and veg, we are constantly—OK, occasionally—confronted by people power walking, or cycling, or jogging past us and of course they do it with a very smug air of superiority. “Here we are, jogging and your lazy butt is stuck in that chair.”

It bugged me. Yes I am out of shape. I’m very over weight at the moment. I hate that fact. I have to admit that I need exercise, and this is a beautiful place. The weather is great and it wouldn’t hurt me—it wouldn’t hurt us to take the cue and get up and do something physical.

It’s amazing how shame can spur a person to action. I have been motivated by shame much of my life. You have to admit that shame is the great motivator. So, once again the vile beast of shame was rearing its ugly head, and I was beginning to feel its goading pricks as I rose from my leisure. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I knew I was going to do something. I was going to get up and walk … no jog … maybe find a place to rent a bicycle and go pumping my little (actually large) legs into shape. I wasn’t going to be a lounging vegetable anymore. I was going to do something!
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But as I poked my head into the living room of our cottage, I saw my lovely wife. She was comfortably resting on the couch. She had formed a symbiotic relationship with the couch. She had become one with the couch and the fact is, she needed it. She has been through a lot, and this vacation was almost too late for her. I nearly had to scoop up the puddle that was my wife and pour her onto the plane to get here. The TSA agents at the airport nearly confiscated her and scolded me for trying to bring a liquid of more than three ounces onto the plane when I explained that the puddle of liquid was my wife and showed them her boarding pass. And to be honest, I was only one step away from her condition. So, as I stood there in a complete quandary over what to do, an open topped car cruised by outside playing Jimmy Buffet. It was then that it hit me.

Sometimes there’s nothing wrong with just being a cheeseburger in paradise.

She aroused out of her half slumber to give me a foggy, inquisitive look. I smiled shook my head, motioned for her to go back to her rest and turned away to go back on the patio.

For the rest of the stay I spent as much time just vegging on the patio as I could. Sometimes we’d sit together and sometimes she would renew her relationship with the couch. And as the parade of aerobiphiles passed by, I would sit in my chair with my coffee, or iced tea, or beer, depending on the time of day, and nod and smile and take a puff on my cigar as they passed by thinking, “You go for it, but for me, right now, there truly is nothing wrong with just being a cheeseburger in paradise--a big double stacked cheeseburger with all the trimmings, and extra mustard.  Yeah."