And we’re off, we weekend warriors with our flip-flips, our sleeveless T-shirts and, in that one unfortunate instance, our Daisy Duke shorts and mesh half-shirt.

With the fleeting vacation season already underway, it’s time once more for those frantic and sometimes infuriating conversations about where to go to make the most of these torrid days of freedom.

If you happen to be a childless couple, there’s a strong chance you begin your weekend planning right around the time the alarm clock wakes you on Saturday morning. Planning is for saps and married couples with kids, yo. Cool people just go with the flow.

The flow tends to look like this.

MAN: “So, where do you want to go today, Sugar Plum?”

WOMAN: “Anywhere we go is fine, as long as we’re together, Hug Bug. How about Old Orchard Beach?”

MAN: “Too tough to find parking.”

WOMAN: “Popham?”

MAN: “They don’t sell food there.”

WOMAN: “Wolfe’s Neck?”

MAN: “Too much walking.”

WOMAN “Bar Harbor?”

MAN: “Too crowded.”

WOMAN: “Pemaquid Point?”

MAN: “Too long a drive.”

This can go on for hours, and what started as a day of promise will devolve into an endless volley of ideas, each more unattractive than the last. The next thing you know, you and that woman you used to love are earnestly tossing around the idea of driving, not TO the nearest stinking canal, but into it.

MAN: “We never do what I want!”

WOMAN: “You look ridiculous in that mesh half-shirt.”

Of course, this wouldn’t happen if you and your beloved would mate, already. Get yourself a bunch of kids and they’ll take the guesswork right out of your weekends. They’ll start at 5:45 a.m., jumping up and down on your bed and screaming that they want to go to Funtown, or Six Flags or whatever it is those little booger factories are into these days. And unlike your gutless boyfriend in the mesh shirt, your offspring won’t take no for an answer. They’ll scream and howl and spin their little heads all the way around until you consent, and come 8 a.m., there you’ll be, headed toward Lord of the Flies Beach while your youngest kicks the back of your seat and tells you over and over that he has to pee.

I hope I’m being helpful. I’ve become so adept at summertime plan negotiating with the missus, I can sit in a hot car outside a flea market for up to four hours without sobbing. Without sobbing outwardly, anyway. Inside I’m already at the bottom of the canal.

Remember, every second you spend arguing about what to do is a second spent watching summer slip by. The sad fact is that the season is already showing signs of encroaching doom. In less than a month, it’ll be the Fourth of July. And once the Fourth has come and gone, you might as well put your culottes away and dig your snow pants out of the trunk.

Just do it, bruh. When your lady suggests a trip to Pemaquid Point, make that nine-hour drive and spend a lovely afternoon saying, “Isn’t that a spectacular view?” “Boy, what a view,” over and over until you believe it.

Perhaps on the way back, you could stop at Big Al’s and get yourself some new muscle shirts. Have you been working out, big guy?

You’ll only need five minutes inside the store, but your girl will require four or five hours. Suck it up, my friend. Just sit in your hot car and wait like a good boy. You’re not going to sob, are you? I see your little lip trembling. Buck up, Hug Bug.

There’s always the canal.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. You can comment on how he looks in that muscle shirt at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.

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