The Internet is For …

My daughter is a theater geek and to that end we own more than a few soundtracks of shows we have yet to see. A few years back I gave my pre-teen  “Avenue Q” without screening it. Imagine my chagrin that summer when on a road trip to see all the highlights of “Twilight” in the northwest, I got to hear my daughter and her little friend singing, “The Internet is for Porn,” while bopping in the back seat. My kid has always been upfront with me about sex so I had to push aside my prudishness and simply sing along. It wasn’t easy. Common misconception about growing up in the 70s – it was less about free love and more about shaming. If you had sex with anyone but your letterman-jacketed boyfriend, you were a slut. Needless to say, we girls weren’t empowered to talk about sex except with each other and the closest thing we had to porn was Rod Stewart.

Anyhoody-hoo, believe me or not, I have used the internet for many things, but as far as porn goes, the only thing that comes close for me is fantasy vacation shopping. I have spent so many countless hours investigating trips that I won’t take that I may need a 12-step program. My name is Tricia, and I am addicted to fantasizing about getting away from it all.

Back in the dark ages when the Sunday paper came to the door the first section I would grab was the Comics (you thought I was going to say the Travel section, but I cannot lie to you, my friend). After Hi and Lois and Hagar had done their magic, I would refill my cup of Folger’s and grab the Travel section. I loved the window it opened onto places I had never even considered visiting – a week around Galveston, Texas; summer in Iceland; Cape Cod in fall. As the Cold War defrosted it became clear that I could spend a season touring the Great Wall of China, or being escorted to all of the state-sanctioned sites of Kiev. I cut out articles on Phuket’s beaches, barge tours of Europe‘s river, biking around the US, and African safaris. I didn’t have a system for saving them, any more than I had a system for saving the money required to make the fantasy a reality. To this day when I pull a box down from the closet shelf to look for an old photo I am just as likely to find an article from 1978 on visiting elephant rescue habitats.

Fast forward a quarter of a century and I have made some of those trips. I have lived in Europe and South America, visited a couple of the United States, mostly around the perimeter, and seen some breathtaking sights in Mexico and Canada. But single-motherdom, the economy, under/unemployment and grad school have put a decade and a half moratorium on travel. The stress of being a responsible adult is inescapable most days, but I wouldn’t trade my life now for how I was 25 years ago, even if it meant a body that moved with relative ease in the morning without the need for a hot shower, the luxury to hang out with friends for hours on end with no particular agenda, 9 hours of sleep each night, and nary a thought as to what to make for dinner.

But just when I think it is safe to go online I get an email featuring Groupon Getaways that I simply cannot afford to miss. I know it will be a time-suck, and time is extremely limited for me, but I can’t help but click on the link. Consider how much better I would function if I took a break from rainy Portland and spent a week in a “thatched roof villa near unspoiled beaches” in Baja California! It would have to be less expensive to feed my little family in Mexico! And if not pesos, why not trade my dollars for euros? Then again, I haven’t seen Susan and Leonard since 2001!  Next thing I know I’m looking at flights to South Carolina at spring break, checking weather.com for the best time to visit Stephanie on the big island, or I’m at 1-800-flyeurope.com massaging dates to fit my fantasy getaway. If it gets really serious I start emailing old friends from Heidelberg to see if they’ll be around the last week of March. The last step is calculating my student loan funds for the term – is there any way to stretch the grocery funds out a bit longer? Doesn’t somebody owe me money?

I Google “cheap travel” and waste hour after hour looking for the best price to India. If I sleep on the flight I can spend my layover running around Amsterdam. This is the best time of year to visit (Tennessee, Indonesia, Malaga) because if I wait til (spring, summer, fall) it will be (too cold, hurricane season, full of tourists). As my fantasy takes shape, my mood rises to heights it hasn’t reached in too long to recall. My heart races and I become giddy with the prospect of packing a bag and getting the hell out of Dodge, if only for a 4-night, all-inclusive stay at a resort in Ojai.

Then Roxy drops a ball in my lap or one of the cats pukes up breakfast and I start the quick descent down the stairwell of reality. I can’t really afford to pay someone to take care of the animals so what am I doing looking at a weekend at the new Tropicana in Las Vegas, even with a $25 dinner voucher and a bottle of wine? I don’t even drink wine.

I close out the myriad windows to my fantasy life – travel sites, airline sites, hotels.com – they all go away. Then I check my email and find reminders of reality – it’s time to pay a bill, a school meeting has to be rescheduled, Carol sent a chain mail full of funny interpretations of text acronyms adapted for old people (ATD = at the doctor’s; BFF = best friend’s funeral; BTW = bring the wheelchair). I laugh and send replies, pay the bill, and close the vehicle of declivity. Fantasy time is over.

Vacations these days usually mean staying with friends in San Francisco. I don’t mind the drive and most times it works out so the dogs can come with us. I have no doubt that I will eventually travel big again. And I have to remind myself I have traveled to places my mother never had the chance to visit. I will see even more places when the time is right. Until then I keep paying Comcast for the pleasure of profylactically protected fantasy vacation shopping. I fill my cart but don’t check out. It’s not the real thing, but no one feels cheaper for it in the end.