Vacation Planning 101

I just do not understand it. I do not understand how one man can be so frustrating. As I have said before, Mark is cheap. He is the cheapest of cheap and now I have the story to prove it.

Mark works all the time. So needless to say it is very hard to get him to go on vacation. Please do not misunderstand me, I know that Mark working long hours is what allows us to live a good life.

Our typical vacation consists of the kids and I going with my parents on their vacation. Don’t get me wrong, once in a blue moon Mark will cave in and go on a real live family vacation. Just last year we took the kids to Disney World. It was like pulling teeth to get him to go, but he did and he had a great time.

So anyway back to my story. We were eating lunch after church yesterday, and Mark suddenly decided we should go away for a long weekend. After my initial shock, I did a little happy dance and got straight to work on the “planning” phase. After all, he wants to go in just two weeks. He said he would like to go to the coast and that works for me. It is July so any kind of vacation for me needs to involve water and sand.

As my planning went further, I realized we were in major trouble. Our normal condominium on the coast was all booked up and everywhere I checked required a full weeks stay in July. I spent three hours on the internet looking for a place to stay. I finally surrendered to Mark's second idea of going "the mountains". I pulled all of my information together to make my “presentation”. You see when you are trying to convince Mark to spend money it requires a full blown presentation.

After all of the work I did, he looked at me and said “I don’t think this is such a good idea”. Seriously? You have got to be kidding me. He decided that he just did not want to spend the money. Seriously? Did he think it was going to be free when he came up with the idea?
Of course I handled this in a very mature manner. I cried! I was so mad that is all I could do.

We are now on day two of this vacation planning mess and we are no better off than on day one. Mark seems to be leaning toward going, but only because he is afraid of retaliation from me. He might actually have to eat bologna sandwiches for a week and do his own laundry. Ya’ know I do feel a sick headache coming on…

I just need a vacation!