A life of total leisure

Man, I just want a life of total leisure, is that really too much to ask for? I don’t want a job, I don’t want to have to go to work, I don’t want to have to do my laundry or fold any clothes. Just a life of relaxation and contemplation. Sure, maybe once in a while I’ll do something, I’ll go outside and water the plants, maybe, I’ll cook a big meal and I’ll think to myself, OK, that was useful. But really I don’t want any of that stuff. No chores, no responsibilities. I just want to always be able to go outside to my backyard and sprawl out on the grass looking up at the sky, always perfect weather, the perfect breeze, just the right amount of sunshine.

My kitchen always stocked with all of the best snacks and foods. Like if I want a Fruit Roll-up, bam, there it is, Fruit Roll-up. And I’m not talking about those yellow and blue multi-color ones, I’m talking the good flavors, only the best flavors, strawberry, like you can see the strawberry seeds smashed into the roll-up if you hold it up to the light, or watermelon, which, let’s be honest, it doesn’t taste anything like a real watermelon, neither do watermelon Jolly Ranchers, but that’s OK, it’s still a really cool taste, a really interesting flavor. One time I found this bottle of watermelon Gatorade, and yeah, I was skeptical, but it actually tasted just like watermelon. Funny enough, I didn’t like it. I wound up dumping the rest down the drain and heading back to the store for a yellow.

Just yellow Gatorade, or orange, I’d love for my fridge to be stocked with only my favorite drinks, Arizona Green Tea, even though I don’t really like it anymore, like I got sick of it from drinking way too much. I want that old feeling, that refreshed satisfaction that I got just by looking at one of those giant ninety-nine cent cans, and I’d buy like three or four of them, a whole plastic bag filled with Arizona Green Tea. Sometimes I’ll buy an Honest Tea Green Tea, because, I don’t know, what am I trying to find? What itch am I thinking that I’ll scratch? Because it doesn’t quite do it. It comes close, but yeah, it’s like Arizona is too sweet but Honest Tea is too boring.

I just want a job where I only have to go in like once a week, maybe four hours at a time, nothing big, nothing too strenuous. Or just a little strenuous, but only strenuous for like twenty minute intervals. I’d go in, or I wouldn’t go in, that would be the beauty of this job, because, you know what? Forgot the whole once a week business. I want a job where I just go in whenever I feel like it, if I ever wind up feeling like it at all. I’d go in batteries fully charged, I’d hit the ground running, it would be like I had never left in the first place. We’d all run around, getting a ton of work done but then, all right, let’s take a break. I want one of those cool bosses that orders everybody pizzas, like he’s looking out at all of us busting our asses and he thinks to himself, you know what would be awesome? If I order the crew a whole bunch of pizzas.

And he doesn’t come out to take an order, no, it’s a total surprise. And he nails it, he nails the order, he gets the perfect mix of different varieties, a plain pie, a buffalo chicken pie, some cool new pie that the pizza place is experimenting with, something I personally wouldn’t have thought to have ordered, but now that I’m trying it out, I’m like, damn, this is delicious, I’m definitely going to make it a point to order this kind of pizza in the future.

After work everybody goes out for drinks, the bar has Big Buck Hunter, and it’s only a dollar. You put in a dollar and the game lasts for like ten, fifteen minutes, and that’s not even including bonus rounds or extended firing if you get ten out of ten big bucks. I wind up playing against some old timer, this crazy looking regular, and we’re having a blast, I keep throwing dollars into the machine, he keeps making a motion like he’s going to leave, like he’s bothering me, but I insist, I’m like, “No way man, you’re not bothering me. The more the merrier! Let’s keep playing!”

And after like two hours of video games, I say to that guy, “You want a drink?” and he surprises me, it turns out he’s the owner of the bar, that this is exactly why he opened a bar in the first place, for that life of leisure, it’s a business, yeah, but it’s about something more, it’s about friendship and fun, it’s about Big Buck Hunter and making new acquaintances. He picks up the tab for the whole group and he sends out for chicken wings.

Man, is it too much to ask for? This life of leisure? We’d all head home and I’d be like, “See you when I see you!” and I’d go home, take my dog for a little walk, I’d head out to the backyard and lie down in the grass, staring up at the night sky, I can see the Milky Way, I can see the Big Dipper, Orion’s Belt, all of the constellations, it doesn’t matter if you’re not supposed to see them at the same time in the same season, because there they are, right there, and just when I think my life can’t get any better, I see a shooting star, and then a comet, and then a whole meteor shower, and then Northern Lights, and the International Space Station passes by, slowly, and even though I can’t see the astronauts and cosmonauts, I know they’re looking down, they’re waving at me, they’re like, “Hey Rob! Greetings from outer space!”

astronauts ISS leisure