Linda is home this Monday, because it is a work holiday. Had I waited to retire one more week, this would have been my holiday, too. But I didn't and it isn't.
Were I still working, I would have relished sleeping in a bit and then really enjoyed having nothing to stop me from watching the Red Sox in the playoffs and whatever NFL games they are showing us,
But I am not working, so I am waking up as I would on any other day. While I am still looking forward to the sports on TV, I also know I will be able to watch them whenever they're on from here on out.
I've lost that special pleasure we get from not going to work because, well, because I don't ever go to work anymore. I noticed the same thing this weekend. It was the first weekend of my retirement, but I realized that weekends don't mean an awful lot when they don't differ from the other days of the week.
This weekend I had none of the special chores and errands that I used to be able to only fit in on days off work. Oh, that's not to say that there weren't some chores that Linda asked me to do this weekend, but that's part of our deal. When we got married, I remember her rewriting the vows from "love, honor and obey" to "love, improve and supervise."
(Actually, that's a joke. LK leads from the front, doing so much work around the house that I usually end up getting off my fat butt out of sheer guilt.)
This is all a bit unanticipated. I have such a vivid memory of loving the last day of the school year before summer break when I was a kid. Since I pretty much liked going to school, I believe it must have been just the idea of complete freedom that appealed. I am starting to think, though, that it might just have been because there was a finishing time, that the first day of the next school year was always coming closer so those lazy summer days were just bright islands in the dark sea of homework and tests.
It will terrify Linda to know that I also vividly recall being bored out of my skull about half way through the holidays. But that's another story and I really don't want to go there now.
I should make it clear. I very much like not having to go to work and it's not even remotely a problem that I have lost the feeling that holidays and weekends are special. However, I do wonder about the future.
Just as it's easier to understand hot by being cold, I wonder if it's easier to appreciate not working when you're working. I wonder if this business of having every day off means I will become the equivalent of that famous frog in the pan of water that is sitting over a very low flame. You know the one - the frog just keeps getting hotter and hotter but the temperature rises so slowly it doesn't notice it is being boiled until it croaks - in both senses.
Which makes me wonder a couple of things. First, is that really true? Are frogs so dumb they don't notice they're being boiled? Second, if it is true, what mad scientist first thought of the experiment and conducted it?
Or was it one of the great accidents of science, where this guy's pet frog accidentally sat in a pan of water that was being heated to cook dinner? Fourth, if some scientist actually did conduct this experiment, how many of them went wrong - and how ugly would that have been? And finally, who would be crazy enough to let their peers know they were boiling frogs in the name of science?
And here's the payoff. Tomorrow's a workday. But not for me. I can google to my heart's content until I find the answers to these questions, all while I'm watching Monday Night Football.
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