Vacation: Ah, serenity

When it comes to vacations, men and women have different but equally valid priorities. Men, for example, tend to favor places where adventures occur and opportunities for entertainment present themselves, as opposed to places featuring walking tours of historically important catacombs where, in 1792, someone established the first nursing school for Alsatian nuns.

Gina: Oh, please.

Gene: Allow me to introduce feminist English professor Gina Barreca, who will assist me with this column.

Gina: Women do not want to be bored on their vacations. We want to relax and be pampered. I actually don’t think there’s such a huge difference between the sexes here.

Gene: You’re wrong. When men accede to women’s lounge-in-the-sun vacation plans, it is usually either to end the nagging or amass critical brownie points toward sexual congress. Or both. By and large, men mostly want adventure.

Gina: In my experience, men mostly want to drive thousands of miles nonstop without conversation, across places like the Utah desert, which is so mind-numbing and otherworldly that if you saw a triceratops walking across the road, you would simply say, “Hey, watch out for the triceratops.” When it comes to lodging on these trips, you take what you can get. On the last such trip, my husband and I found ourselves in a dismal hotel that, among other things, had no cutlery, so we wound up in a room with nylon sheets, eating potato salad with a shoehorn.

Gene: That sounds interesting!

Gina: My point exactly.

Gene: The single greatest and most memorable event from any vacation I ever had occurred in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in 1996. We realized that the VW Bug we had rented had a faulty fuel gauge and we were in immediate danger of running out of gas on a highway notorious for roving bands of toothless, machete-bearing banditos who robbed you, then cut off your head. We wound up limping into the airport on fumes, pulling up to a rental-car gas pump, and refusing to move until the attendant gave us a gallon. We settled on $20, American. It was cool.

Gina: That was your most memorable vacation moment?

Gene: Yep. Major league adventure. What’s yours?

Gina: Last summer in Villa d’Este, Italy, my husband and I arrived at our hotel and we discovered that our little hotel had given us this spectacular room with a balcony overlooking Lake Como. The French doors opened out into the setting sun, with potted plants, beautiful wrought-iron furniture, and champagne and cheese that the hotel had left for us. It was so lovely I could have wept, and then I found out that Bette Midler was staying in the same hotel, and her room wasn’t as nice as ours.

Gene: That’s not even a moment! Nothing happened!

Gina: Well, I admit, it’s not a near-death experience. You are way off base here. Men and women both value beauty and serenity, and, above all, romance. Even my husband would agree.

Gene: Really? So if I asked him for his favorite vacation moment, he would say ...

Gina: Villa d’Este, Italy, balcony, summer 2002, Bette Midler gets aced.

Gene: Put him on the phone.

Gina: OK.

Gene: This is gonna be good.

Michael Meyer: Hi.

Gene: Please tell me your favorite vacation moment.

Michael: That’s easy. Gina and I were in Colorado, climbing Pike’s Peak in a rented SUV....

Gene: You listening, Gina?

Gina:

Gene: She’s listening. Continue.

Michael: And Gina got out at about 6,000 feet, where there was a little outpost selling postcards, but I continued up alone to 9,000 feet, where it gets pretty hairy. The road was maybe the width of a car and there was a sheer drop on either side. A Chevy Suburban was parked sideways across the road with a hand-lettered sign that said, “Turn Around, Winds Too High.” So I’m in this rented SUV, and I don’t really know its turning radius, and I have to make a three-point turn. As I’m doing it, I’m hearing gravel tumbling down the cliff. It took me, literally, 15 minutes to turn around. It was incredible!

Gina:

Gene: Thank you. And that concludes our column for today.