Did you pack the sleeping bags? Good, good. How about the hurricane lamps? Excellent. Now there was something else we were planning to bring along. What the hell was it? Oh, right. Marshmallows.

Well, it is August, and as you know, most of the world goes on vacation during the course of this high summer month. (I mean most of the northern hemisphere, of course. Below the equator it’s freaking winter.) Big Green is no exception. While the French bug out on August 1, we typically wait until August 21st just to give them a head start. Not that they have anything to worry about – we seldom get beyond the stage of packing our stuff before the wheels come off.

Faulty transport technologies

Okay, so, that wasn’t a metaphor. The wheels actually came off of our rented vehicle. Not surprising, given the liberal terms they offered us. Faced with the prospect of embarking on a walking vacation, we obviously started looking into other options. Now, not everyone has access to a mad scientist, and while it’s tempting to just ask the dude to whip together some kind of land rover hover craft, we don’t want to take the easy way out. (Besides, Mitch Macaphee, our mad science advisor, is in Madagascar for a conference.)

My first thought was to press-gang Marvin (my personal robot assistant) into hitching himself up to a donkey cart and pulling us along. He has solar batteries and motorized feet, so it’s not as far-fetched as it seems. Well, when he refused, we were left with few good options. The only ones worth considering were, hitch anti-Lincoln up to a donkey cart, or settle for a stay-cation in the Cheney Hammer Mill courtyard.

Free water from the sky-gods

I hate to say that the wheels came off of our stay-cation plans, but they kind of did, even though technically speaking, wheels were not required. As soon as we pitched our tent in the courtyard, it started coming down … in buckets. Again – not a metaphor. It was literally raining buckets! Now I know that rain is a blessing in many parts of the world. But too much of a good thing is, well … not a good thing.

You couldn’t describe what happened next as anything like a vacation. I’m basing that on firm metrics. For instance, there was no recurring campfire. No s’mores were made. (Marvin tried to make the s’mores work, but water and graham crackers don’t mix.) No one carved a birch bark canoe. I know these aren’t universally recognized benchmarks, but they give you a rough picture. Bloody weather!

You can’t go home again

The fact is, when you’re home, you can’t go home again. Though, interestingly, when you open a door, you can close it … again. In any case, slinking back home from a failed stay-cation took about two minutes. Hardly a walk of shame. (I think the minimum length for a walk of shame is five minutes, but don’t quote me.)