The Rolling Thunder of Spring Break

It rolls across my Facebook page like thunderous claps, a constant storm, a  ceaseless barrage, lasting the next few weeks.

Pictures and celebrations and self-congratulatory pats on the back for a well deserved reward for hard work, a necessary and vital recharge.

Smiling faces at Disney World, bikini clad shots from the beach, people visiting natural and man-made wonders.  It's Spring Break, baby!  Woohoo!

But we all don't share in it.  For some of us, it's just watching a lucky group of people rub it in, like seeing a handful of people get ice water in hell. or like the Woody Allen movie where he is on a train of sad and lonely people and sees a train of happy, partying people pass by, and realizes that he has gotten on the wrong train and it's too late to do anything about it.

And I see all this knowing the one great universal rule of public accounting - to paraphrase Tom Hanks in A League of Their Own - "These is NO Spring Break in accounting!"

Of course, I am not alone.  There are many who can't take one.  Some might be able to take vacation at this time, but not all.  I mean, the kids are home - might as well plan vacation around it.

In our area, it seems more intense because the public schools are our largest employer.  Yes, the same people and economy almost completely dependent on government jobs, is the same area that chronically votes for politicians whose major goal is to eliminate those very same jobs.  These are the same people who flood to movies like God's Not Dead 2 where public schools and government workers are demonized and vilified.  These are the same people who are worried about disease clusters and coal ash, and then turn around and support the end of the EPA and other government regulations.

The hardest thing is that my own spousal connection, Alison, and my high school age son, Benjamin, are home all week, whereas I am deep in the forest of tax season.  I'm trying to work out going to Atlanta with them for 24 hours to see a They Might Be Giants concert, and my son Doug.  If I do get to go, I will have to make the time twice over.  Wish me luck.

I know.  I need to be more grown up and Christian about it.  I should enjoy that so many get a break, a break that is justifiably needed (breaks that more of us should get).  The pictures should make me happy, not green with envy.

But dang!

That ice water looks good.