Looking back at last season in a summer daze

While some of the more studious among us are spending the summer taking general education classes or working to build resumes at internships, the rest of us are too busy living our lives to even think about those things. We’ve got sleeping in to do, blockbuster movies to watch, barbecues to sit around, and procrastinating to get done.

But even with such a busy schedule, there’s always a chance to fit in some fun activities to fill the slower parts of the season. That “Real Housewives of New Jersey” marathon isn’t going to watch itself.

In the hot summer, a favorite activity of many a bored vacationer is swimming. And for the great majority of us who have no access to a swimming pool, lake or flooded drainage ditch to swim in, your community center has you covered.

A trip to the public swimming pool can be fun and easy. It’s just a simple matter of getting in your car, driving to the pool, buying a tag or wristband to get into the pool, changing in the locker room in front of strangers, taking a shower (to be certain not get the pool dirty), finding a place to hide your wallet where no one will take it, walking to the pool ladder and finally praying that no one pees in the pool while you are swimming in it.

You’ve got about 40 minutes before the octogenarian synchronized swimming club takes control of the pool, so why not play some pool games?

A popular one is Marco Polo, so named for the inventor of water polo, who was known for being blind and yelling at his friends. Originally devised as a way to grope strangers at pool parties, Marco Polo grew in popularity when President James Polk described the United States Manifest Destiny as being “like a young man wading through the water, swinging his arms frantically.”

 If you want to see a better reflection of your summer, there’s no place better to go to than the zoo. Only there can you pay $20 to see a wide assortment of exotic animals from around the world, all of which are at least as bored as you are.

You can see a Bengal tiger lounge on a rock for hours on end, a hippopotamus stew in its own filth, or a penguin stand in one place and clean itself. And you can do it all while walking around in the hot sun with the potpourri of animal dung filling the air.

After walking around the entire park and seeing every family of animals sit around and stare at you indifferently, you’ll feel incredibly productive by comparison.

At the movies, it was the season of the blockbuster, and people came out in droves to see films like “Transformers 2: The Rise of the Franchise.” You can kill hours at the theater if you know what you’re doing; it’s just a matter of coming prepared.

Theaters survive in this economy based largely on getting people to pay $8 to see a robot hump Megan Fox’s leg, and thus operate outside the realm of logic. Because of this, they can charge four times the normal price for low-volume, high-cholesterol concession food.

To circumvent this, smuggle your personal supply of popcorn, soda and Sour Patch Kids inside whichever pockets you have available. When the usher asks why you’re wearing a winter parka in July, just say that you have the 24-hour Ebola virus. See if anyone touches you then.  

If you’re desperate, you could look for a summer job. Or, to simulate the job hunting experience in the current economy, you could walk around town for three hours and ask someone to punch you in the stomach at each street corner.

Which still beats going back to school.