• Who: Bridget, Emily, Dan, Jess, Kyle
• Where: The Samoset—Rockland, ME
• What: Cobb Salad with portabellas, lots of Bridget’s fries, bloody mary

Sitting idly by the pool on vacation unleashes a beast inside even the most frugal, practical of people. The Vacation Beast seems to come out of nowhere. One minute you’re taking nickles and dimes out of your wallet to pay for the parking meter, the next you’re tossing your keys on the passenger seat for the valet and throwing $20s around as tip. Instead of a report on Greening Slack Plaza in Charleston, West Virgiina that you’ve been saving, its six back issues of the New Yorker and USweekly.  Instead of carrying a credit card, you just start charging everything to the room. Prices might as well be in Rupees, because there’s no point in looking at them anyway. You’re on VACATIONNNN!!!!! 

Once the Vacation Beast is unleashed, it becomes nearly impossible to get it locked back up again. Part of this may have to do with the Vacation Beast’s unhealthy appetite for beach umbrellas, fried food/pizza/alcohol, navigable waters and leisure. Those four elements, when packaged together, form an impenetrable new compound that dangles tauntingly in front of the vacation beast’s black oversized Raybans, preventing the crazy animal from going back in its cage and keeping it loose in the wild. The vacation beast may pretend to be docile, sitting lazily in a beach chair pretending to watch little kids play in the pool, but under that chest hair and bright pink skin, the vacation beast is ready to pounce on the next available wine spritzer in site—and will stop at NOTHING to get it.

It’s usually not too hard to predict where the Vacation Beast will surface, however, so there are some tactics available to help ward it off. First, avoid any location with the word Club in its title. Beach Club, Golf Club, Swim Club—you’re running a risk with Yacht Club and Country Club, so it’s best to avoid them, too. The Vacation Beast is a club connoisseur, and will stop at nothing to get in the gates. Second, remember to stay calm when the phrase ‘free towels’ arises. Free towels tend to imply benign lounging for hours on end by the pool, but don’t be fooled—free towels mean that the Vacation Beast is just around the corner, ready to pounce unsuspectingly. Most importantly is the Vacation Beasts’ love of bocce or any other lawn or beach sport—that game with the two Velcro paddles and the tennis ball, nerf anything, croquet—all bad.

Moral of the story: the vacation beast can be stalled, but eventually it will find you. Just look at us—we thought we were safe at Maggie’s wedding in Northern Maine. Weather called for wind, highs in the low 70’s and chance of rain every day. Apparently, though, the Vacation Beast didn’t do well in the 4th grade spelling bee, because it confused Maine with Mexico and sneaked up on us at the Splash Pool Bar when we least expected it. Never stop checking behind you, because the Vacation Beast will be there the minute you squint too long into the cloudless sky, ready to order a $17 Cobb Salad.