Monday, July 11, 2011

I Hate Long Weekends!

Image: Frank the mouse cries out in frustration, his hands atop his head as if to pull his nonexisting long hair; his arms bending his whiskers.
Originally done out of
Stresssss!
Most people love long weekends; I don't. Long weekends for me are an opportunity; an opportunity I can never use.

It's always the same. I see the long weekend coming up on the calendar, and I start thinking of what I could do with that extra day (or days). Usually I settle on one thing; something that I know I can do in much less than a day, and then start doing it from Friday afteroon.

Except that it never gets done.

Firstly, I don't live alone. I live with an annoying–
"Hey!" interrupts Sis.
–model human being…
"Better," interjects Sis.
…who firmly believes that long weekends were made to watch TV loud enough so that she can hear it no matter where she goes in the house. It doesn't matter if there's a test or a project on the day immediately after, she takes her day-off, off.

Occasionally, she'll go into a cleaning mood, and woe is you if you get in her way, even if it's just to go to the bathroom or to make yourself a sandwich.

This brings me to the second thing: long weekends are the only times I worry about the state of the pantry, because I can't eat at the college cafeteria. And for some reason, it's always empty on long weekends .
Image; A young man with short, uncombed hair, pulls open a refrigerator, which is empty. The racks appear bare, and the shelves on the door have nothing in them. Even the little light appears burnt out!
Apart from the obvious difficulty of preparing food for ourselves with few ingredients, there's an added problem: There's no such thing as a quick trip to the store on long weekends. Why? Because while you may be there just for a carton of milk to pour on your cereal so you can get back to work quickly and meet that deadline, everyone else is in the "it's a long weekend" mood, so you're sure to find people literally strolling through the store, at a leisurely pace, taking their time to pick their items, maybe check out that new brand of shampoo, and they're always getting in your way! It's like they all got together and said, "hey, why don't we start blocking the aisles and then pretend it wasn't our intention?"

Lastly, there's the problem of getting back to work after the long weekend is over. No matter how hard I try, I can't internalize that Tuesday, July 5 was a Tuesday; Wednesday, July 6 was a Wednesday, and so on. The fact is, you're no longer in your routine. You have to create it anew.

Sure, people complain a lot about being "trapped" by their routine, but you know something? There's a reason why we create them. If you have to try and guess what to do every day when you get up, sure every day will be an adventure, but you won't get anything done. Literally.

You remember the Independence Day Post? That was the only thing I got done last week. And it doesn't even count because I picked the video out the previous year, and made the avatars over the course of Sunday night! Sure, I read some things I had to read, and thought about some things I had to think, but what did I do? What did I actually produce? What did I actually get down on paper? Nothing!

I hate long weekends!

2 comments:

  1. Cartoonists never get a long weekend. It's just another day.

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  2. My appologies if you can't see the fourth image. I was trying to exploit a loophole in my and iClipArt's policies while I set up a "legal" way to display it, but the "legal" way proved to be way more trouble than it's worth.

    I'll just draw something this weekend.

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