A vacation

It's funny watching people's mannerisms when they're coming home from vacation. When they're waiting at the airport, impatient and sunburned, their eyes half-glossed over and their steps reduced into mere stumbles. It's like they've forgotten to see as they walk around. They only look.

And they're rude. They forget their manners somewhere between the strawberry daiquiris and the overpriced excursions. It's like they forgot they were on vacation in the first place.

We waited at Cancun airport today after driving up from our timeshare near Playa del Carmen (we did not stay in Cancun. I'm not a fan of that city and avoided it like the plague, except one rainy day when we drove around its mega hotel-lined streets), and from the corner of my ear I heard a couple fighting. Rather, the husband was yelling at his wife. Something about her always being mean to him. His voice just kept creeping louder, but he was faintly trying to keep his level down. She responded with tight-lipped requests for him to keep quiet. It was a mess. They sounded like they belonged in divorce court. I tried to tune it out, but couldn't do much about the pit in my stomach it unleashed.

Don't people know how privileged they are to be able to take a week out of their lives, visit an underdeveloped nation where they live much better than the vast majority of the locals, pick and choose what they like in said nation and spend their money on needless souvenirs and sidetrips? Isn't that worth pondering over moreso than adding fuel to a petty argument in the middle of an airport? I don't get it. Maybe I'm the only one that sees the link.

I guess you don't need money or fancy vacations to be happy.