Oh S**t, its vacation time

You should know this about me: I prepare for vacation the way Pharaohs prepared for death ­ on a grand scale and with my organs in mason jars. I must have my entire life squared away. I put the will on the desk, leave passwords in secret envelopes, and put the love doll in a Dumpster (to be retrieved later). The house must be cleaned, and projects I have been working on for months must be completed. I don't know why. It's not like I would have completed the projects had I stayed home. But there I am, last minute before I have to leave for the airport, frantically organizing my 1st grade baseball card collection.

It's as though I am preparing for death rather than a fun vacation. I even leave instructions for an estate sale and "talking points" for my obit.

I know every year in these pages I predict that I will not return from summer vacation, but this time I might actually be correct. I am heading into the wilds of Africa, where I'm sure I'll be torn apart by elephants who mistake my large head for one of their own.

Traveling to Africa is an exciting hardship. The 19 hours of flight will be filled with booze and boyhood dreams. I can't wait to spot my first slinky leopard and snorting cape buffalo and battle my first case of malaria. It's all romantic until reality clubs you in the kneecaps.

I'll be standing at the Botswana baggage claim full of whiskey and regret. The conveyor belt slowly circles with the same two pieces of third hand luggage. I turn to the lion next to me.

"Can you believe this?" I ask.

"No. They lost my steamer trunk last year," he says as he smokes nervously and reads a racing form.

"Well, I can't live two weeks in the same pair of clothes."

"You got that right," the lion says. Then he kills me. The rhino in the ill-fitting uniform glances up from his podium for a moment then goes back to his Harry Potter.

Africa on the Fourth of July. I can't wait!

Oh, and by Africa, I mean Lake Granbury which is only about an hour or less away.