Even if you make it to Bed Bath and Beyond tomorrow, your Saturday will only be one of two things. If you do have time, and you do make it to BBB, and you spend some time looking for a Photon Ray Stabilizer in the Beyond section, your Saturday is still under one of two categories. And, if Saturday finds you at the park, with your kids, and then later it finds you at some other park, also with your kids, and in between your Saturday finds you pushing a stroller or walking with those same kids down some concrete sidewalk, your Saturday is still the same as the one above.
If, before the visit to some mall down some busy stretch of some suburban highway, you find time to stop for a little ice cream treat simply because the flavor of the day was something chocolatey, your Saturday is still no different. If you sit on a blue bench and eat that chocolate something or other, and you laugh a bit and your kids do too, then your Saturday hasn’t escaped yet. It is still as the one above and the other above that. If you drive to an amusement park, the sort with tall wooden platforms and scary looking ticket takers, and then after you find your way to some cute little restaurant down some cute main street, you haven’t escaped yet, even if the desert was light and rich but somehow not all that heavy.
When you walk to the end of your driveway, the driveway that’s across from the Johnson’s and just up the road from the Miller’s, and you grab your Saturday paper before retreating to your breakfast room table to a fresh cup of coffee, this is still the same sort of Saturday. What’s worse, when you walk down the driveway you have to look around to see cars that might normally be parked in the neighboring driveways and numbly notice that they’re not where they normally would be. And that’s because it’s Saturday. The Millers are at the lake, probably having all sorts of different fun, and you’re at the end of your driveway with your robe on and your paper in hand and nothing but a cup of coffee to look forward to. Stupid Millers.
The other Saturday is one spent at the lake, and not even the entirety of Saturday is something to be overlooked. Saturday morning is very different from Saturday afternoon. Saturday afternoon has filled to the point where those without summer homes have had time to drive to visit, to fill the streets and walk the shops. Saturday morning, on the other hand, is reserved mostly for the vacation home owner. Saturday morning is quiet, in the way that a Tuesday morning might be, but it’s the calm before the storm, a brief pool to reflect in before the pace of a summer weekend kicks in and sweeps everyone along with it. Saturday morning is meant for coffee and pastries, and it’s meant for paper reading, sure. But it’s also meant for early morning skiing or early morning fishing, and it’s a time meant for driving down the main street of a town like Lake Geneva and reveling in the fact that there isn’t nary a car in front of you or one behind you. Saturday morning is something that we cannot sleep through.
Unless we’re at home, in the city or the suburbs, then we might as well pull the shades tight and sleep the day away. Bed Bath and Beyond can wait until Sunday, which, if we’re spending it in the city, is exactly like Saturday, but with the added benefit of waiting in line for brunch, so that’s something. Choose the lake Saturday. It’s better than the city Saturday no matter which way you slice it.