Let’s Stay in Bed
Big Daddy Graham has the perfect cure for the wintertime blues.
I am a magazine junkie. It’s no accident that I write for South Jersey Magazine and it’s a real honor for me to get this back page. The February issues of most of the magazines I read generally feature two “go-to topics.” One centers on how to lose that holiday weight (avoid those tricky gym membership ripoffs!), and the others have beautiful pictorials with titles like “Cure those February blues with a trip to a tropical island” complete with photos of models strolling arm in arm with their feet in the surf gazing longingly into each others’ eyes. You never see overweight couples in these features or people screaming at the front desk clerk because they were promised a room with an ocean view and now they’re sleeping in the janitor’s closet with their pillow next to a mop and a bucket. For a week!
So, as usual, I’m going to navigate this article in a different direction. I am going to encourage you to go absolutely nowhere and just stay home. That’s right. To stare down that 8 degree weather straight in the face and batten down the hatches. (Whatever the hell that means.) To defy that 12 inches of snow piling up outside your window and ride out the storm (so to speak) by eating every piece of candy in the house. What you are about to read took my wife and I years to perfect and you are receiving this free of charge.
How to Spend a Vacation in One Day in One Room
STEP NO. 1: MAKE THE DECISION AND STICK WITH IT. First of all, my wife and I always go out on Friday night, whether it’s to meet up with some friends for dinner and drinks at Carolina Blue or just the two of us hitting up a movie and some slices at Cherry Hill’s King of Pizza. Hitting the nightlife on Friday night is just something we always do.
But Saturdays? It’s the first day of the week where you get to sleep in. Why ruin it by getting out of bed? And for what? To chip ice off your rearview window while snapping another scraper?
And to go where? Keep it real. How many Saturdays in this awful month do you hold concert tickets to? Why do you think your favorite music acts tour mostly in the summer? Because they hate defrosting their tour buses and slogging around the Eastern Seaboard as much as you do. And forget going to a movie. With Netflix, what’s the point?
And there’s nothing you can’t do in bed these days between your iPad, laptop, iPhone and cable TV. I remember as a kid I used to see photos of Hugh Hefner working in bed and I thought that was way cool. Now your fat cousin Harold can do it.
So just stay in bed. Plus when you make that decision, a great feeling of relief sweeps over you. It’s like calling in sick.
STEP NO. 2: STAY IN THE CLOTHES YOU WOKE UP IN. This may appear to be a minor detail but it’s not. It’s a commitment. Now this is not a problem for men. Men are renowned for wearing the same jeans and T-shirt for weeks at a time. So staying in the same 30-year-old Eagles jersey two days in a row is no big deal for us slobs.
But women? This is where it gets tricky. My wife is convinced that if she doesn’t slather herself with underarm deodorant, people will be able to smell her in Merchantville. And we live in Mullica Hill.
So there’s not a chance in hell that she’s going to spend the day in the clothes she woke up in. My wife routinely tries on seven different outfits when simply driving to the post office. And if she wears one of those outfits for more than three minutes? Into the hamper it goes. I’m convinced that my wife’s next step is to install a washer and dryer right into our bedroom.
So she is at least going to put on a different T-shirt and pajama bottoms. But my wife’s favorite aspect of spending the day in bed? No bra. Ever see that Coors commercial where the woman sits on a sofa and eases out of her bra like it’s the most fantastic feeling in the world? My wife loves that ad.
Taking a shower? That’s optional.
STEP NO.3: DO NOT GET INTHE CAR. This is very important. One of the coolest things about my house in Sea Isle is that I can walk to everything. Restaurants, the bay at sunset, bars, the beach, Wawa. Even a dentist and a doctor if I had to. But I’m telling you the truth that of all those beautiful Shore things I just listed, being able to walk to all of them is the grandest aspect of it all.
But that’s not the case with Mullica Hill. You can’t walk to a damn thing. You not only have to drive for the littlest thing, you have to drive for anything and everything.
So it takes a little intestinal fortitude to not get into a car. But I can’t stress enough how important this point is. Do not get into the car to pick up dry cleaning. It’ll still be there on Monday. Do not get into the car and drive to Target. (This is usually the deal-breaker for my wife and daughters. If they drive within three miles of a Target they get sucked in like a tractor beam pulling them into the Death Star.)
But most importantly, do not get in your car to get food. You’ll have to, at the very least, put on sneaks, some sweatpants and a spaghetti-stained hoodie. Of course when you run into the deli to get some lunchmeat, you’ll bump into Marie who will babble on endlessly about how her little Jason made the honor roll. Meanwhile, the entire neighborhood will parade on in seeing you dressed like a slob.
Now I usually stock up the bedroom closet with Three Musketeers, Tastykake butterscotch krimpets and Entenmann’s chocolate chip cookies. I don’t have to leave the room. I’ve prepared for this moment. I’m a Marine! I would win Survivor.
And remember, thanks to companies such as GrubHub, you can get any type of food delivered to your den of iniquity.
So tape this article up in your master bedroom. Believe me, you’ll thank me for it.
In closing, I would like to recognize our readers. I asked you to send me a Christmas card to cheer me up and I received 437 of them. Thanks so much, it moved me.
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Published (and copyrighted) in South Jersey Magazine, Volume 16, Issue 11 (February 2020).
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