An Open Letter To The Person Who Asked Me What I’m Doing For The Summer As If I Didn’t Have To Work 

I will be doing the same thing I do in the fall, winter, and spring, except it’ll be hot out. Yes that’s right, I will be working. Why? Because the need to eat and pay rent doesn’t just go away because the days are long and there are mosquitos.

I’m not sure why you think I could take summer vacation. I live in the US, so I only get ten days off per year and my PTO is the same as my sick time, so I need to save my vacation days for flu season in the fall. Perhaps seeing me eating this stale pastry has put the word danish into your mind and you have confused me for someone from Denmark who gets five weeks of paid vacation and spends the entire month of July on the beach, perfecting their tan.

If you must know, there will be some differences for me this summer. Instead of my usual long-sleeve button-downs, I’ll be wearing short-sleeved button-downs. (But I will still need to bring a sweater because of the arctic AC temperatures at the office.) Instead of the nervous underarm sweat I get while giving presentations, I’ll be sporting both my nervous underarm sweat and some forehead, chest, and back sweat acquired from commuting on a 98 degree day in August and getting stuck in a subway car without AC.

Summers are for children, college students, and adults who had the foresight to become teachers. It’s also for wealthy freewheeling adults, the kind who make enough money that they scamper off to Lisbon, Patagonia, and Burning Man every June, July, and August, but who somehow also work jobs that don’t mind they are gone most of the summer. Perhaps you have confused me for one of these “fun rich” types. I’m sorry to disappoint, but these multi-colored Tevas on my feet are my attempt to look hip for casual office Fridays, not for cruising the fjords of South America with my polycule.

No one ever asks what I’m doing for the fall. I wish they would because then I could tell them about my pumpkin carving or how I will be sick with the flu and need to use my precious few vacation days to hunker down under the covers with Tylenol and Pedialyte. No one asks what I’m doing in the winter, but if they did I would tell them about drinking hot toddies at the office because once again I am sick, but have run out of PTO. And the spring? I get sick yet again and even though I’m vomiting, clock into work saying it’s probably just allergies.

So why are you asking me about the summer? Obviously it’s because of what summer meant back when we were kids. Long afternoons running around with friends, not a care in the world. Diving off the dock into the lake. Realizing your friends had pranked you and stolen all your clothes so when you got out of the lake, you had to run home naked. Bumping into your crush on this embarrassing naked dash home. Feeling ashamed about your body to this day and going to bed every night for the rest of your life wondering if they saw that massive pimple you had on your butt.

You do know that summer vacation is an outdated sham, right? It’s a holdover from back when there was no AC. We don’t need summer vacation anymore because now there is a ridiculous amount of AC in buildings (and a surprising lack of it on some subway cars). But clearly you think summer is a verb, a time when people enjoy their cabins or beach clubs or chalets. Well for me, summer is a noun, another time of the year when I toil. And hey, if nothing else, at least work will never steal my clothes or gawk at my awkward pubescent body.

But anyway, what are YOU doing for the summer?

Yours in the heat,

Elizabeth Simone