It’s hard to explain my visceral reaction to the article. Just reading the headline left me in an emotional pretzel: anger, revulsion, disdain, dismissal, disbelief.

I steamed and growled!

It was about a survey that found people who are spontaneous travelers also tend to be happier.

WHAT?!?!

“That’s utter malarkey,” said the guy who had just pulled an all-nighter researching rental cars and driving Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way … and had no idea whether malarkey was a kind of fish or something you scrape off your shoe.

Spontaneous?!?

Canada is a beautiful country filled with wonderful people, and I was absolutely enamored … until I tried to buy gas. That’s when the panic set in. “$143 a gallon?!?” I screamed as I approached the gas pump, sweat forming across my brow. I was staring at the price shown on the digital display. “Oh my God, we have to go home! We can’t afford to drive 25 feet!” Here we were about to traverse hundreds of miles across this country, and I was going to need a mortgage just to fill-up. Oh, the joys of international travel. Even a country so similar to us has its many nuances and quirks and fun traditions to discover … not to mention confuse dumb people like me. For instance, how Canada lists gas prices in cents per liter.

I’m exhausted, spent, tired out. I’m mentally drained. I have worked hard. I have labored. I have trained for weeks — studying, planning, prepping. I have given it my all. I need to rest. Why? I applied for a new passport. Three in fact, and it was no picnic. But I’m done. It is all in the government’s hands now. There was a time when these sorts of things were a piece of cake. Even fun. The hardest part was stapling the little square photo to the application. Get that right and you were home free. Get it wrong and you forever looked like you had a bullet hole in the center of your forehead. Today there are greater dangers and more security concerns. Passports are serious business, and they come with many hassles, steps, document needs and all manner of ways it can go wrong. Take the picture, for instance. There are endless instructions, the most important of which is to not smile. But if you don’t smile, you look serious and mean … kind of like a Russian spy. That’s what my 12-year-old daughter looks like. I’m afraid no country will let her in. “This is Maria Porasgova, the Dark Wolf of St. Petersburg!” some foreign customs agent will declare. “She can kill a man with the flick of her fingernail. ARREST HER!!!”

It’s a painful, soul-destroying moment: The morning you wake up and realize your vacations are done, the Fourth of July Weekend is past and all summer holds for you is heat and kids who sleep-in until 2 p.m. because they don’t have school or jobs or any care in the world. It’s the summer doldrums. When the working stiffs exhaust their vacation time and go back to the office to stare down the year ahead. Harumph! But don’t despair, fellow weary workers, as there are easy ways you can hold on to that summertime vibe and feel just like you’re still on vacation. Here are a few tips that work for me: • Grow an uneven, slightly haggard beard. It should look like a beaver pelt that Lewis and Clark brought back from their expedition. Nothing screams vacation more than lax hygiene standards and a who-gives-a-darn mound of facial hair. Throw in a twig or a coffee stirrer for added authenticity. When your co-workers start asking if you’ve developed a drinking problem and discuss an intervention, then you know you’ve got it just right! • Read books by really intellectual, high-brow authors, and then take up writing bad poetry that you believe will usher in some kind of new literary renaissance. (Co-workers will believe it is just another sign of your drinking problem.)