I just got back from a week in Cancun, Mexico. I know what you are thinking. ‘He’s bragging,’ you think. But that’s just not true. I’m confessing. And there is a certain amount of shame involved in this confession.

You see, most people who vacation in exotic, foreign places are eager to go, gather plenty of evidence that they went, and then won’t shut up about it once they get back. They wear their vacation like a badge, showing the word that they are a well-traveled cosmopolitan who has had many more great experiences than YOU ever have. But badges are awarded for accomplishments, not for experiences. And I did not accomplish anything.

You see, I did not win this vacation. I didn’t even make it to the first boss level. I tried all week I was there to figure out the point, but it was such an insidiously clever design, it managed to defeat me, and send me home in the shame of my ineptitude. I thought I was onto something the day we visited the Myan ruins at Chichen-ittza. I scurried about the ruins (at least, the ones it was legal for me to scurry about) seeking the treasure and looking for pressure-plates and other sorts of booby-traps. Not only did I not find the treasure, but I didn’t even find any booby-traps. I came away with photos and a post card, but I don’t think I got any points.

Then I went scuba-diving. They wouldn’t allow me to arm myself, but I felt confident that I could take on the enemy divers hand-to-hand, robbing the first one I defeated of a spear-gun or knife, and then take on the rest of the enemy and the sharks and such and disarm the sunken nuclear war-head in time. But no such luck. A fish tried to bite me, and I saw a sunken movie prop, which was exciting, but it was an experience, not an accomplishment. If I had killed the fish that bit me, THAT would have been an accomplishment. But the danged thing swam away.

So I came away from my vacation, having accomplished nothing but to add to the already bloated tourist trade. And this is my shame. If I go through life accumulating experiences, then when I quit this world, I take my experiences with me and leave nothing behind that affected the world.

Next vacation I take, I’m gonna WIN that sucker!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 28th, 2004 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.