Thank you, Ted Cruz, for making it even more difficult to plan my next vacation.
By now, everyone with electricity and Wi-Fi — two luxuries still missing for thousands in the Texas senator’s home state — are aware of Cruz’s spontaneous decision to flee to the Ritz-Carlton in Cancun, Mexico for a family getaway, leaving behind freezing constituents, power grid failures and boil water orders.
After details of his trip became public, Cruz hastily returned, changing his story more often than a Kardashian changes shoes. One of my favorite Cruz lies was that he was planning to “work remotely” on the beach. Anybody who has taken a tropical vacation knows that plan is permanently scuttled the moment the first daiquiri arrives.
Even Facebook hates Ted Cruz
How does the world know so much about Cruz’s fiesta follies? Social media, obviously, as photos of Cruz boarding a plane to Cancun began circulating faster than a frozen margarita begins to melt. But more damning evidence piled up when it was revealed Cruz’s wife Heidi had invited other couples to join them, via a series of group texts. One anonymous recipient leaked the thread to The New York Times, ensuring the Cruzes will soon need to find new friends.
As I write this, my wife and I are contemplating an April getaway to a warm weather destination. Several other couples, all of whom we’ve traveled with before, have expressed interest. Unlike the Cruzes, we aren’t looking at uber-luxury resorts like the Ritz, preferring a single vacation home. We also haven’t coined a group chat name; the Cruz chat group was titled the “Lovelies,” the texts revealed.
If we did name our chat group, I’d vote for “The Procrastinators” or just a praying hands emoji, as in, “Let’s pray we can actually pull this off.”
Ladies, start your chat groups
But already, the texts are flying back and forth. To be clear, it’s the women doing the texting; guys tend to leave the particulars of vacation planning to their wives, content to show up the day of travel with golf clubs and a bottle opener. I’ve been privy to a few discussions, mostly via my wife looking up from her phone and saying something like, “You’re OK with Italian food, right?”
I have since asked her to remove herself from the chat group.
“How am I supposed to communicate?” she said.
“There are other ways,” I said. “Phone calls, FaceTime, carrier pigeon; heck some of our travel group lives on our block. Why not just open the window and yell, ‘HOW DOES EVERYBODY FEEL ABOUT BEACH CHAIR RENTAL?’”
“Why the sudden aversion to texting?”
“I just don’t want the thread to end up in a major newspaper,” I said.
“You think any of our friends would do that?”
“I’m not sure. You don’t call somebody a ‘Lovely’ and expect him or her to throw you under the bus.”
“This is the best way,” she said, as her phone chimed. “Two of the rooms don’t have their own bathrooms. How do you feel about sharing?”
I thought for a moment.
“Write that we would be honored to share a bathroom with anybody regardless of race, creed, color, gender, religious preference or sexual orientation.”
“Why would I write that?”
“Hey, I’m just trying to protect us.”
“I just wrote that we’d prefer our own bathroom.”
“Oh, great, how’s that going to look splashed all over social media? The Schwems discriminate. Can you say, ‘cancel culture?’”
“No, but I can say, ‘paranoid.’”
“Please just sit this one out,” I said. “Let the other girls plan the trip and say we’re fine with whatever they choose. As long as we pay our share, who cares?”
“That makes it sound like we don’t want to go. Hey, here’s an idea,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Let’s just include a lawyer in the travel group. He or she can draft a document that we all have to sign, stating we will never share the group chat contents. Do we have any lawyer friends?”
“We could invite Ted Cruz. He’s a lawyer.”
“Ewwww.”
