Vacation Preps

Hello, I’m your smart phone and you have 92 reminders on your current vacation prep list. How do you plan on grooming all 8 dogs, cleaning the house, straightening your office and packing your “everything” bag  in the next 2 hours?

Oh, you say this is a theoretical list–full of chores you would ideally like to accomplish? Not a must-do list? Okay, that’s fine, as long as you understand that it’s physically impossible for any non-super hero to zip through this  list in the allotted time. Last year you tried that and you almost had to be carried onto the 736 Boeing with wide aisles– that’s how much lactic acid your muscles produced before seguing into painful spasms.

So at least you’ve learned that much. Time expands but not infinitely unless, of course, you’re Einstein and a genius who knows how to bend things to their way. But that’s for another day. Right now we’re talking GETTING READY FOR THE BIG TRIP.

Before you had access to me–your Apple 3GS iphone , you would have been mulling and scribbling for weeks.  Making lists of chores and apparel on scraps of paper and distributing them in odd places throughout the  home and office. Then when the time came to actually use them, they would have fallen into a black hole. Oh the cursing and tearing of hair that  took place; you grieved like a mother robin with a mouthful of worms who misplaced her babies.

But today, thanks to your smart phone c/o the ingenuity of Steve Jobs (may he rest in peace), you are in a better position to master the tedious, complicated world of vacation preparations. You have your reminder app to tick off all those boring activities you know you should do, such as emptying the refrigerator of perishables and changing the bed sheets; you also have your calendar app to mark out every hour of every day in the week preceding your departure with injunctions such as  (a) locate the passport or drivers license; (b) print out the e-tickets; (c) place a hold on the mail; and (d) do all the other hundreds of little, niggling details that go into abandoning your comfortable home and flying off to strange parts of the world in quest of uncertain pleasures.

Thanks to your Trip Advisor and Expedia apps you will arrive at your gate on time and with the proper documentation. And apps for photos, email, music and news will allay all anxieties about not having the proper entertainment on board your Boeing flight to Asia, Australia and thereabouts.

So how come I’m down to Day 2 and counting and still not sure I’ve loaded everything vital on my phone. What if I get an emergency email from the editor from hell and need to get back stat with a rewrite. What shall I do then, smart phone, you smart-aleck smart ass?

I think these preps are getting to me. Too much stress. Then again, the new iphone is coming out later this summer. Maybe this one will feature a drone-nanny. I can always hope.

 

 

Share this Post: