They sent me on vacation once. I didn’t want to go, but I couldn’t resist—I had to fetch my grandson after his holidays by the warm sea in Gökçerende and hand him over, safely wrapped in the silver velvet of our native fogs, straight into his parents’ arms.
They sent me, but they failed to account for one thing: I actually liked it on vacation, and I no longer wanted to come back.
The public (by which I mean, my wife) was outraged and began demanding my extradition from the kids’ place. All so I would eat various healthy little salads instead of gorging myself all day on pelmeni with sour cream, washing all that happiness down with kefir.
At the same time, the outraged public became concerned about my health (both physical and mental) and insisted I undergo a full medical examination.
I don't like doctors... I'm terrified of doctors, but then I figured no doctor could possibly outmatch my malingering skills, so I went. Mostly just to be able to say: “Yes, I went. Yes, I did all the tests. They found nothing, which means we need another, deeper examination.”
Things turned out... well, slightly different from what I expected. They put me on sick leave! What's more, at first, the doctors couldn't even figure out what to title it. In their consultative report, they wrote:
“Uh, how to put this simply?... Basically, it seems the patient is exhibiting clear signs of neural pathway asphalting: the neurons responsible for responsibility and ~~love~~ the urge to work have completely atrophied, ousted by an aggressive colony of neurons that blossomed wildly on a diet of kefir. They didn’t just tread a path; they laid down a high-speed highway complete with dopamine speed bumps.”
Below that was a postscript in another doctor's handwriting (honestly, the medical report looked more like a high school yearbook where all your friends and classmates write life wishes, complete with poems, sheet music, and funny doodles): “An anomaly has occurred: the ringing of an alarm clock no longer triggers the production of cortisol (the stress hormone) in the patient, but rather a violent surge of melatonin and an irresistible urge to burrow deeper into the sand...”
What sand?! In my kidneys? Judging by everything, to this doctor, the words “vacation” and “lounging on the sand” are synonymous, so he went ahead and invented a reverse Pavlovian reflex for me.
Another doctor chimed in, diagnosing me with "dopamine separatism." He claimed the joy hormones (serotonin and dopamine) had declared sovereignty and refused to return to the gray matter, citing the fact that “they were perfectly fine on the beach.” A vacuum had formed in the brain, which was now filled exclusively with the smell of maritime ozone.
I never even liked lounging on the sand, beaching it like a seal... why travel or walk all the way to a beach just to lie in the sand, when you can do that quite successfully at home on the couch? Or in a hammock on the balcony? Without having to shake the sand out of your underwear and socks afterward?
A third doctor went ahead and invented a brand-new nosological unit with a clearly defined etiology (cause), pathogenesis (mechanism of development), and characteristic symptoms. Ptyśiopathia is a severe psychosomatic disorder in which the patient’s spine adopts the shape of a banana, refusing to straighten into a vertical position for sitting at an office chair or standing at a milling machine. Or a lathe. Or a drill press. Or a thickness planer. Or a gear shaper. Or a jointer. Or a band saw... He could have kept listing them for hours, but I bolted from the office with the words: “Or a shaving razor!”—and I not only slammed the door behind me but propped it shut with a chair for good measure.
In the end, as I said, they gave me sick leave, on which they simply wrote: “Ptyśiopathia, Syndrome of Forced Recreation.” The patient exhibits an acute form of the syndrome of forced recreation. Contrary to clinical prognoses, forced deployment on vacation has led to a spontaneous remission of workaholism...
Funny people—I didn't even have this workaholism when I was in the womb. I remember them trying to lure me out back then, tempting me with all sorts of goodies and bonuses, and I refused—saying, “They feed us perfectly fine right in here!”
...Do you think I'm just babbling away out of some unquenchable thirst for self-expression? Nope, it's just that all this reminded me of a similar situation my little Anëlachka-Ratuyochka once found herself in. Hers was even worse! According to her... actually, what am I doing: “according to her, according to her”... why retell it when you can just read the original? And then it won't be my summary, but her letter—I write to you, what more is there to say: do not miss Šêdu | § 30.1.