In a few weeks, autumn will begin. You know, that time when leaves, your hair, and just about everything falls. Apples, cider, and red-brown foliage. It’s time to say goodbye to summer and to these satirical summer columns with which I’ve been keeping you company these past few months on the beach.
If you think the worst thing is going back to work, it’s because you haven’t yet thought about everything else you have to do when you get home. There are times when I wish I lived in a tent. It can house less junk. It gathers less dirt. There’s less room for the rotten food you forgot in a hallway cabinet before you went on vacation.
Back to the Office
The Moroccan geographer Ibn Battuta spent 30 years traveling. He traveled more than 120,000 kilometers and crossed 44 countries. And the amazing thing is that he wasn’t being chased by Kamala Harris. He was attacked by pirates, robbed by bandits, kidnapped, and had to hide for a week in a swamp with nothing to eat. (READ MORE from Itxu Díaz: Resolutions for the Return From Vacation)
Pay attention: this was a walk in the countryside compared to what it will be like for you to go back to that damn office for the first time after vacation. Everyone will be tanned, energetic, eager to work, and in a good mood. What could be more irritating?
Change of Wardrobe
It’s time to ditch the Hawaiian shirts and break out the fall clothes. In fact, it’s time to shed those Hawaiian shirts for good. You’re not Tom Selleck in Magnum, P.I.
Nothing Is Where It Should Be
When you return home, nothing is in the right place. Most of the things you can’t find will turn up a year from now when you’re packing to go on vacation again. Don’t waste time searching. At most, if you can, if you’ve lost something very important, like a box of cigarettes, car keys, or a baby, ask mom for help. You know mothers have a superpower: x-ray vision.
Sand Stays Until Christmas
One of the big homecoming questions is when the heck will the sand disappear.
It’s in your suitcase, in your shoes, in your car, in your cell phone earphones, and even inside a vacuum-sealed jam jar. Don’t wonder how it got there. While you sleep, the grains of sand dance, have secret parties, and sneak into every nook and cranny. When you wake up, they play dead. They won’t leave until you ignore them.
The Return of the Cold
Soon it will start raining, the city will turn into hell, you will arrive at the office with soaked socks, and you will not stop sneezing all day. And, on the wettest day, some idiot who lives 15 hundred kilometers away from the nearest orchard will turn up saying joyfully: “Let it rain, it’s good for the countryside!”
The Excitement of Sport
In the hell of going back to work, we will be left only with sports for compensation. Buy pizza and beer and embrace that happiness with all your might.
But, beware, not all women like this advice. Remember that terrifying assessment by Dave Barry: “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there are men on base.”
Back to the Gym
Just kidding, right?
Calling Friends
One of the main hobbies of the returned vacationer is to call friends for a few beers and tell them all about every single minute of his 21-day vacation in China, French Polynesia, and the Norwegian fjords. If, on top of that, you are forced to watch 15-minute videos of him climbing some nondescript mountain on his cell phone, you have every right to take revenge.
Always carry a video with a couple of hours of your dog sleeping in the garden, focused on the foreground. And spend an hour and 50 minutes saying, “Wait, wait, the best is yet to come.” When the video is over and nothing happens at all, tell him, “Shit, we must have missed it. Wait.” And play it again from the beginning.
Setting the Alarm Clock
The alarm clock is an invention of Satan to capture souls through despair or, failing that, anger.
The most dreaded moment for a vacationer is when they have to set it for the first time. Psychologists recommend adjusting the hours of sleep little by little as the day approaches. Don’t listen to them. Make the most of every last minute of nighttime revelries. You can sleep when you’re dead. And you’ll be dead tomorrow — Monday — when the alarm clock goes off at six in the morning. I say this from experience. I’ve tried it and this column is posthumous. I loved you very much.
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