My Favorite Hiatus Memory

I'm always curious about people's favorite memories.

Like the memories we have of high school, like when we're at a class reunion. The years seem to melt away as the memories come rushing back. And actually the years in high school do melt away, because the five or six memories we have of high school compress it all down to about two days.

In high school, one of the few things I remember is jumping on the trampoline that time we weren't supposed to and getting busted by the teacher. I made a couple smart remarks about it and we walked away and walked somewhere, toward the west, now that I think back, and laughed about his consternation. Of course now as an adult I can see the problem, that if we would've gotten hurt, it would've been on the teacher's head, since he was the only responsible adult there at the time, etc.

But those memories are of the olden days. And it's not that great to get together with those chums of years ago and laugh it up over five or six memories. Then the rest of the time we're sitting there -- like 10 minutes later -- thinking, Now what? I blew my memory wad in 10 minutes. I don't know these people. They're old people. They have grandchildren. I'm not even married. I'm an idiotic bachelor still living at my grandparents' old rundown house.

I don't really think of myself as an idiot. That is, I try to put it out of my mind. And now that I'm thinking of it again, it's depressing. But today is not a day for depression! I'm up and at 'em. I'm alive and vital. I have enough healthy spleen to vent on any enemy who comes my way and seeks to depress me or oppress me or repress me. I don't need anyone to repress me. I can do fine at that myself. If you want to impress me, you're going to have to try harder. Because I hold myself to exacting standards and the rest of you aren't getting a pass either.

Anyway, what do I care? I can just tell the world the truth, that at the present moment I'm on hiatus. And that's true. I'm in a transitional phase between hard work and dedication -- overwork -- and possibly permanent retirement, although I still don't think it's going to come to that. Certainly I gave up the hard work part and have been taking it easy for the most part ever since. And time has been slipping by. And I'm not hungering to get back to it either, to the blog (maybe just a little), and none of the rest of it. It's a hiatus for me, sweet and simple.

Which leads me to wonder what your favorite memory is (so far) of my hiatus? And if you don't think you can narrow it down to only one, what a few of your favorite memories are. Until I hear from you, which I know might take some time, I'll share my favorite.

One of my favorite memories -- if it's not my absolute favorite, because I also have more than one -- is when I was thinking about "Wrestling and Rasslin' With My Hiatus." I was just thinking about this yesterday, and was wondering if I had another "wrestling and rasslin'" post in my system. But this time I was thinking in terms of wrestling or rasslin' animals and not just people.

Like it's wrestling if you wait till the alligator has his trunks on, but it's rasslin' if you attack him from behind on his way to the dressing room.

It's wrestling if you wait patiently while the ref calmly explains the rules to the alligator in growls he can understand. It's rasslin' if you nail the rules to his forehead.

It's wrestling if the alligator gets a breather between rounds. It's rasslin' if he's not breathing at all.

It's wrestling if you take the alligator out for a beer afterwards. It's rasslin' if he needs an IV drip to drink it.

It's wrestling if the alligator smiles and shows his teeth. It's rasslin' if he smiles and I give his teeth back to him.

You can probably see, if you really think about it, why the post on wrestling and rasslin' would be my favorite hiatus memory. They're both funny and true, creative and obvious.