It's supposed to be a time to de-stress.

So it turns out, I'm really popular at work. Everybody wants me in their office. I'm sure it has everything to do with my sharp wit and intellect, but deep down I think it has more to do with the fact that people want to take vacation.

Because that's what I do: someone takes a vacation, I cover their desk. It's certainly not easy, but I never turn down a challenge. Plus it works really well with the commitment issues. And the short attention span.

For some reason this year as the new calendar year loomed, people started getting almost competitive with their vacation days (which I naturally assume means they are all fighting over having ME in their branches). It came down to the branch managers meeting with their manager about coverage and who would get what and when and how would they solve the problem of overlapping vacations. Because if you don't use your vacation after a period of time, you lose it (never happens to me). And there are a LOT of escrow folks out there who are on the brink of losing theirs.

But really, this isn't the important part (or the part that would inspire me to sit down in my small window of "me" time before bedtime on a Thursday night). The important part stems from about seventy five people wanting to take Spring Break off because they have kids in various stages of schooling. Only one person is going to get coverage, so the managers have to figure out how to handle it.

As a single person, I've never taken the "family" type holidays as my vacation time. I'm more of a middle-of-the-winter kind of girl, mostly because I get so sick of being cold that I want to go somewhere warm. I have always deferred the Christmas/Thanksgiving/Spring Break/Mid Summer/Labor Day/Memorial Day/Fourth of July weekend situations to those otherwise encumbered by spouses and/or offspring. Because I'm nice. I was raised with good manners. Plus I don't have to wait for my kid or husband to get time off to do something fun; I was smart enough to keep things simple and therefore do things on MY agenda.

So recently someone mentioned that a coworker with no children wanted to take vacation during a holiday week more commonly suited to families. She was laughed at; well, maybe not LAUGHED at, but poo-poo'd at, like, Oh don't be silly. YOU don't need that time off, YOU don't have any CHILDREN.. and all the hens with overworked uteruses (uteri?) cackled amongst themselves and the request was ignored.

And THAT, my friends, is what pisses me off.

Because I chose NOT to reproduce, I get the sloppy seconds. I'll never have a party where everyone gives you a bunch of free shit because I got knocked up or decided to completely surrender my independence to some guy, and I'll never get to take advantage of maternity leave. Now you want to take away my major holidays? That's right. I have the financial means and complete freedom to spend Christmas skiing in Aspen, or celebrating Independence Day in Washington DC, or Saint Patrick's Day in New York (or Spring Break in Cancun... but yeah, you know I don't want to do that..). But because I have no children, the very reason why I have so much money and freedom, I CAN'T take these holidays. I think that is the most absurd and discriminatory thing ever. I'm mostly serious. I mean, I've been nice for the past thirty years because I have always had the flexibility of taking my vacations whenever I want to; but to have someone poo poo this coworker of mine like she didn't DESERVE a specific week simply because she wasn't stupid enough to have kids?

Wrong. It's wrong, and it pisses me off. And I, for one, can do something about it. I fully intend to request Spring Break week, the week around July 4, Labor Day weekend and a couple of days around it, and the last two full weeks in December as my vacation. For next year. Because this year I'm already booked on everyone else's desks.