10 Things You’ll End Up Regretting You Did This Summer
My kid gets out of school on Friday, which means that it’s time for “summer break”, two words that strike terror into my sweaty heart.
I was not cut out for summer. I was born in New Hampshire, grew up in Pennsylvania, and somewhere between June first and June sixth of my first summer in Georgia, I realized just how pitifully Irish I was, with my outer dermal layer fully crisped and a new understanding of the term “hyperhidrosis”. Now, for reasons I still haven’t been able to completely articulate, I’ve relinquished my American passport so that my family could live in Texas. Texas, if you don’t know, is like the Australia of America, where every kind of animal can kill you, and the danger of baking to death in the shade is very, very real.
I’ve accepted that there is no point to ever doing my hair in the summer, because despite the dry heat, it will remain plastered to my neck, soaked in my own filth. My husband, for his part, understands that his balls will never come unstuck from his leg.
My daughter, who has lived most of her life here, remains relatively unfazed and constantly asks what we’ll be doing this summer, and my answer, “Stay inside and pray for a quick and merciful death” don’t seem to satisfy her. So we end up planning activities for the weekends, knowing that we’ll regret them. Here’s 10 I can’t wait to start regretting already.
1. Going to any water park.
Let’s expand this to any amusement park activities. The lines. The third degree burns. The inevitable loss of a small child. Watching some guy who has a tribal tattoo make out with some lady who has a butterfly tattoo, having it turn X-rated, and trying to explain to your six-year-old what a reach around is. The overwhelming smell of pee.
2. Camping.
Camping is the bane of every hypochondriac’s existence. There will be mosquitos, and where there are mosquitos there are dengue fever/malaria/west nile scares. Also, you probably have to make like a bear and shit in the woods. Pass.
3. Enrolling your child in a summer reading program.
I loved the summer reading program when I was a kid because I was a huge, friendless nerd. This was before helicopter parents ruined everything. My kid, an avid reader, can not keep up with the kid whose mother fudges the reading log or checks out half of the Juvenile Fiction section on the day the program starts just to sabotage everyone. No one believes your first grader read As I Lay Dying, lady.
4. Navigating the hellscape of summer “camps”.
For the life of me, I can’t find an overnight camp for my kid, which both she and I would consider to be pure, unadulterated bliss. Instead, the “camps” here are all 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM programs where my child can learn cheer leading fundamentals for the low low price of $200 a week.
5. Spending more than five minutes at the public pool.
See number one. Add “oblivious moms changing blowouts on a floaty raft” to everything above.
6. Sunbathing.
Maybe not for everyone, I’ll admit. But every time I think I will go and get a little sun to deepen my color (which is actually what I like to call “transluscent ivory” or “glow in the dark eggshell”), I end up burning a deep scarlet, which peels off to reveal a paler shade than I was to begin with.
7. Family Reunions.
Even if I liked my family, I would hate this. You know the term “I need a vacation from this vacation”? That comes from spending a week in a guest room listening to Uncle Steve and Aunt Helen whisper fight about whether we should all go to the Olive Garden or Red Lobster.
8. Purchasing summer clothing.
Some people love shorts, flip-flops, and tank tops. Because my skin could be harvested for reflective strips on bicycle shorts and I inexplicably have cellulite on my shoulders, I would rather sweat my tits off in slouchy sweaters and jeans all year long, thanks.
9. Fireworks of any kind.
Fireworks are boring. There, I said it. We are finally at the age where fireworks don’t terrify the shit out of my kid, and now the problem is getting her to sit still long enough to watch them. Maybe they would suck less if everyone wasn’t busy recording video of the display that they’ll never watch later.
10. Having a picnic.
Especially in Texas, which would collapse into the Earth’s crust if it wasn’t held up by one enormous fire ant colony and where trees are just glorified bushes, “picnic” is just code for “trying not to kill one another as we gag down tepid, curdled mayonnaise”.
(Image: vvvita/Shutterstock)
