It is true that self employed individuals can have schedules that more easily accommodate deep rooted desires of the heart. It is also true that those who are well employed can have the same flexibility that affords time and funds to move more easily from a world of work to a world of pleasure without much effort. If a Tuesday afternoon, such as this one, looks to be 76 and sunny, with calm winds and ample blue skies, I imagine that many self employed and well employed individuals will find time to take advantage of this delicious day, even if cell phones and tablets and laptops must tag along. These flights of fancy are not the sort that would find you hiking the Appalachian Trail for days on end, with only staffers to cover for your disgraceful absence, but rather these lustful pursuits that need to be explored are between man or woman, and lake. In other words, I know you’re busy on days like today, but days like today are what Geneva was made for. These are the days that work must, if it can, wait.
I know I sound detached from reality when I write like that. To suggest a day is expendable just because the sun is shining is pretentious, but in the event that you haven’t been paying attention over the past four years, pretentiousness is my finest character trait. I understand some must work and compute and conference call and generate countless TPS reports that were, in actuality, due late yesterday afternoon. And for those people, I appreciate your work but I have to tell you that you are not my target audience today. Today, it’s about the self employed and the well employed, those who have vacation days that expire at the end of this calendar year; days that can not be stored in jars and placed on your heavily varnished walnut mantle. These are days that must be seized, and they must be seized not because they are occurring in September when days like these wane, but they must be seized in May and in June, and it’s a given that they must be owned in July and August, but just because I write that it’s a given doesn’t mean that you agree.
On any golf course on the outskirts of any city, large or small, on a day like today, there will be men in work clothes playing golf. Women too. They will be hacking around the course, talking on their cell phones, barking orders and mocking their golf partners, and they will be doing this covertly. Many will golf, but few of those on the other end of the hurried between-swing cell calls will know it. This is the art of playing hooky, grown up style, and it’s in this covert operation that Lake Geneva shines.
If you were to own a vacation home in Green Lake, Wisconsin, that would be fine. I would politely suggest that you vacation near or on a pleasant lake, but then deride you for your decision either to your face, or just on this blog several days or weeks later. If I were to assume that you work somewhere in the 60606, it would also be accurate to assume that you would need to spend roughly three and one half hours in the car from the moment you left your downtown office until the time that you arrived at your vacation home. That drive time assumes that traffic will be light and the weather you left in Chicago would be the same weather you would find some 185 miles north. In other words, if it’s playing hooky you desire, and your vacation home isn’t within a reasonable distance, you cannot indulge in this weekday right of vacation home ownership: the midweek, midday hooky (hookie if you’re old school).
Since I gladly share my lake with anyone who can make it here on a weekday, I offer up this simple course in the fine, but dark art of hooky playing. Your day will go something like this, and I must warn you, there is a chance that your spouse will need to know about this or offer up some sort of running approval of such behavior, or these actions can backfire in a most dangerous way that may or may not involve custody hearings. You should therefore inform your spouse of these activities. Your day begins as it normally would. You arriving at your office, or other place of work. You chatting with your coworkers or boss or employees, taking ever precaution to talk in normal tones that would be appropriate for that day. If, at the water cooler, your employee/boss/coworker is suggesting that it’s going to be a long, hard day, nod sympathetically, being careful to not nod condescendingly. Do your best to disengage those involved in such talk as they may be leading you down a road that will lead you only to guilty admission.
If you arrived at your office at 8 am, you should work as normal until roughly 9:30. Do not appear to be hurried or distracted, but do peak out the windows with regularity to gauge the cloud cover. If clouds are still absent from the sky and it is approaching 9:30, you must now set in motion the mechanism through which you will escape your office setting. For this to work, you must be in your car and on your way to Lake Geneva no later than 10. Say 10:20 tops. Around 9:30, try to start talking loudly on your phone about a meeting. Never mind if your secretary/coworker/boss doesn’t know about this meeting, they will. If this is a sales call, gather your sales material as you might normally, this may include product samples and the like. If a coworker/boss/employee asks what you’re doing for lunch, tell them you’d love to go with them but you have this meeting with (insert relatively obscure client name here). Tell them you’d rather have lunch with them, but suggest that this is a big sales call/meeting, and then shrug as if this is a difficult meeting and you need time to prepare both mentally and physically. Gather more papers, any papers, and stuff them into a briefcase/purse/folder.
You’ll want to tell your office that you’ll be back before the end of the day, but that you’ll be reachable via cell phone and email, except for the duration of the meeting, which should by the way, last perhaps just an hour, but possibly two. This way, you’ll have bought yourself time to return their calls if, at the time of their initial call/email, the noise from your boat engine is too loud to hear the ring of your phone. Be careful to say goodbye to some of your coworkers/bosses/employees, but not all of them. If you make a trip around the office to announce your departure, this will appear fishy and should be avoided.
Slip, quietly but casually, out of the office/shop by 9:50, allowing time to get to the parking garage/stall. Do not walk fast, and do not talk on your phone when you leave. There is a chance that your boss/employees/coworkers are watching you from a window somewhere, so you’d be wise to walk casually but with a purpose. If you’re talking on your phone when you leave, it appears as though you are making plans, which is bad. They think you already have a plan- the meeting- so don’t talk until securely obscured from their view. Once in your car, loosen your tie, or if you’re a women, loosen whatever women loosen when they get in a car to suggest relief. If your spouse is in on your plan, and you wish to be the greatest mom or dad ever, you could stop and pick your kid up early from school and bring them with you. They’ll love you forever for this.
If your drive is swift, you should be to your Lake Geneva vacation home and changed into shorts and rummaging through your lake house refrigerator by noon. At that time, you have a full three hours to boat/swim/rest, before you must turn around. Sometime about 2:15 pm, it would be wise to call your office if you haven’t yet. Ask if they need you to swing back in, and hopefully this is when they’ll say no. If they say no, depending on whether or not you have informed your spouse of your mental and physical mid-day vacation, you can either stay a bit longer, or head directly home. If you have not informed your spouse of your day, you’ll want to change back into your work clothes. A special note- be sure to wear sunscreen while at the lake, and then wipe every trace of it off before heading home. Nothing gives away a misspent afternoon like a burned nose and tan lines left behind by traitorous sunglasses. If, in the event you run into a coworker/employee/boss while on the lake, do not make eye contact with your fellow truant. It is a big lake, so this sort of encounter should be easy to avoid.
Assuming the prior steps have been followed carefully, you are positioned now to arrive at home/work and carry on as usual. Lake Geneva lends itself to playing hooky better than any other vacation destination I know. Days like today are the days you want a place here. Days like today are why you work so hard on all those other days. Days like today will last for a few hours, and then they will be over. Whether or not you take advantage of them is up to you and your work schedule and your skill at engaging in the fine art of playing hooky. Rule #1 about playing hooky is that we never talk about playing hook again. All the other rules are the same. See you at the lake.