This is Torture

As anyone who has been a regular reader of this blog knows, I'm madly in love with all things Italian. Let's face it, if Italy were a guy, I'd be spending Christmas in jail, serving time for stalking. I've watched enough House Hunters International shows to know that living there is out of our price range (unless I ever edit that bestseller that is now sitting on my hard drive). My next best hope is getting back there for an extended visit but even that seems unlikely with other financial obligations tugging on our dwindling resources. That's why I've grown to hate the mailman.

Every week, without fail, our local public servant deposits tantalizing brochures and beautifully photographed catalogs for Mediterranean cruises and Italian vacations, detailing the once-in-a lifetime deals waiting for my husband and me if only we book by the end of the month. Every time I go to the mailbox and find one of these instruments of torture waiting for me I'm torn. Do I pay the mortgage or call the travel agent? As I grab a cup of tea and lovingly turn each heavy, laminated page filled with images of the Italian countryside or rustic, cobblestone streets, my rational thinking goes right out the window. Maybe we could get by eating nothing but potatoes for a few months. Maybe we could raise the deductible on every insurance policy we own. Maybe we could rent out a spare room. (Oh, yeah, that won't work. Our kids are still in them.)

Eventually, reason prevails and I finish my tea and close the latest attack on my senses. But I can't bring myself to toss the brochure into the recycling bin. That rational I am not. So now I have a filing drawer filled with outdated specials and once in a lifetime deals that have passed us by. But that's okay. I'll hang on to them just in case one of these years, I get what I really want for Christmas