Pre-Vacation Day...The Worst of all Days

Today is pre-vacation prep day. 

The worst of all days. 

We’re heading out for a week at the Jersey shore tomorrow. 

Z usually takes the day before we leave off and, well, you can guess the rest.

The first thing is to prepare a list of all the lists that need to be made.

The second thing is to adhere to the lists and check completed things off the list as we go. If items are attended to that were not previously on the list, they are added to the list…and then checked off...the list.

Of course packing is a big item on the list. There’s all sorts of packing. There’s food packing. Food preparation packing. Beverage packing, both non and non-non-alcoholic. There’s entertainment packing, which has become much more manageable with the advent of the IPod. No more lugging around 500 CDs just in case you feel moved to play “Lime in the Coconut” one night.

There’s linen and towel packing, pillow packing, shoe packing, sundry packing, mondry packing and tuesdray packing, as well. Snack packing, which is in addition to food packing, book packing and of course, clothes packing, which most definitely includes bathing suits and towels, since we are going to the beach for a week. 

Don’t laugh…it’s been known to happen; but not with us…not with the list…no way!

Once the lists have been scrutinized and check assured, car packing can now commence. The car is carefully backed down the driveway so that the packing materials can be efficiently hauled off the deck and onto the driveway, where the Rubik’s cube of packing can begin. You might think that packing a Hyundai with the stuff of two people should be pretty easy, but you would be wrong. 

As you know, if you’re shore savvy, weather wise, the beach is a funny place. While it may be warm and sunny at 11 AM, it can be cold, windy and cloudy by 4 PM. Therefore one must pack accordingly and pretty much just bring everything they own, including that natty sweater from Aunt Louise.

So there’s a lot of stuff and we kind of look like this when we're done.

I’ve actually thought of photographing or diagraming past packing’s to expedite things; but I thought that might be excessive. Not to mention weird. Besides, after a while it becomes second nature; until you buy a new car and then you start all over again. So it’s best to keep what you drive as a long as you can.  And 1988 was a good year for Hyundai’s.

Once ALL the packing and list checking is completed, a call to our house sitters, Gunter and Gerde, is made to assure them that their required supply of lutefisk is in the basement fermenting. We also let them know that there’s a brand new cushy sofa in the living room for their two very large, very scary, Great Danes, Hans and Feats, to have their way with.

It’s nice to know the place will be in good hands while we’re away, and the smell of week old lutefisk is always oddly reassuring upon our return.

Before we found Gunter and Gerde, we would just lock everything up tight and take all the usual vacation precautions; stop the mail and the papers, etc.

Z would leave a note behind with our mobile phone numbers, just in case any intruders wanted to get in touch with us; you know, in case they couldn’t figure out the remote for the flat screen or where we kept the “good” gin.

Z would also clean the place like a fiend the day before we left and make sure all the trash baskets were empty in the morning.  She always claimed that it was nice to come home to a clean house.  But I always suspected that she was really planning ahead in case we became shark food, and she didn’t want the “bereaved” relatives who came over to pick through all our stuff to think we had a messy house.

So, with all that in place, we look toward an early morning departure in hopes of beating the incessant traffic on the Garden State Parkway. 

Best of all, we’re now free to hit our pillows, which mostly prevents us from hitting each other. 

I mean vacation prep is stressful…list or no lists.

Check back in a couple of days and I’ll update you on our progress.  

I better add that to the list….

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I know...too many options. Probably better to just go back to bed....