Summertime and the living's easy

You know, I don't deserve this shit. I hear from friends, family, acquaintances and people who hate my guts all summer, and it's always the same old refrain. "You are so lucky to have off all summer!" It's not all gravy, this no-work all-play lifestyle I get to live for 10 weeks every summer. Let me give you some examples of just what a pain in the ass it can be to have all this free time.

Many mornings, around 10:00 or so, I like to hit a grocery store or two to pick up some fresh fruit and vegetables for a delightful summertime breakfast. Sure, the store is uncrowded and I get to move through it at a leisurely pace, but you'd be surprised at how many mornings the stores don't have enough cashiers available, and I'll have to wait up to 10 minutes to check out. You folks who are slaving away in your cubicles don't have to deal with this aggravation. You get to hit the stores on the way home from work, which means you not only get to use a store with enough cashiers, but after your hot, sweaty, aggravating, trafficky commute, you get to enjoy the refreshing cool blast of grocery store air conditioning. So who's lucky now?

I am a big Howard Stern fan and an avid Tour de France viewer. The Stern radio show runs from 6:00 to 11:30 in the morning, and Le Tour runs daily on OLN for three weeks from 8:30 to 11:30. This overlap provides me with a stress that you (all summer long) workaday people will never know. Do I listen to Howard, or do I watch the Tour? I hear you saying, "Hey Douche, just listen to the radio and watch the race with the sound down." You don't understand. The biggest reason for watching the Tour is the announcers, two of the most eloquent and articulate sports commentators of all time. This causes me so much stress that I'm almost glad on those mornings when I wake up too late to enjoy either show. But you big luckies who have to work every morning don't have to burn acid holes in your stomachs worrying about this daily dilemma.

Another area where I deserve some pity is the weather. Right now half the nation is suffering from a scorching heat wave. Where I live, yesterday's heat index topped out at around 110 degrees. Now, if I were lucky enough to work all summer, I could have enjoyed a refreshingly cool day at work, sipping cool drinks, joking with co-workers and surfing the Internet when the boss is out of sight. But since I had to fill the long afternoon hours of yet another day off, I decided to take a long bike ride. Do you know how hard it is for a man my age to ride 15 to 20 miles in that heat and sun? Why, I had to stop twice for Gatorade, which I then drank in the shade beneath a tree, but it was still pretty toasty even out of the sun. While I was outside suffering, I bet you got to enjoy an afternoon drink in a soothing climate-controlled office before you got back to your last three hours of work. But for me, well, it was so hot that I (almost) started to wish my remaining 29 days off would go by a bit more quickly.

All this free time to enjoy the sun certainly doesn't do much good for my bank account. While you get to maintain that pasty pallid look all summer, I have to worry about skin cancer, because I have all that free time to go out and enjoy the endless days of blue skies and relentless summer sun. This means I have to buy several bottles of sunblock with an SPF of 200 or something. That stuff is expensive. You year-long workers have to buy, what, one bottle a year? And it's not like it keeps the sun away entirely, either. I still end up with a dark tan every summer from all that running, biking, walking and swimming I am forced to do with all this free time.

So count your blessings tomorrow when that alarm clock goes off at 6:00 AM. But please don't let it buzz for too long. Since I don't have to be back at work until August 18th, I plan to have an extra martini tonight, and I'd hate for your alarm clock to wake me up unnecessarily. Speaking of "waking up," why don't you get off the Internet and get back to work? Now if you'll excuse me, I have a bike that needs riding.

Ned Bitters teaches high school and dreams of one day seeing one of his former students on stage at a strip club. You can contact him at teacherslounge@hobotrashcan.com.