What do a 40-something dad blogger and the classic 80s movie character Ferris Bueller have in common?
A day off!
Although it was released in 1986, a Baseball Prospectus article established that the day in question in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was in fact June 5th, 1985 – 30 years ago last Friday.
So, in commemoration of this pop culture anniversary, Heather and I elected to take a random day off today to re-enact the movie. Well, sort of. Okay, not at all, really. But we did have quite a day nonetheless.
Like Ferris Bueller, our day off was a welcome break from the pressure and stress of our day-to-day life. When you have three kids it’s funny how any child-free day, no matter how mundane, feels like the biggest luxury ever. It’s rare for either of us to have a day to ourselves, rarer still for us to do so together.
Among other things, Ferris and his friends spent his day driving a prized Ferrari 250 GT California, having lunch at a fancy restaurant called Chez Quis and gatecrashing a parade to perform the Beatles’ Twist and Shout.
We spent our day driving my prized BMW 4-series, whiling away the afternoon having lunch at Raymond Blanc’s Le Manoir aux’Quat Saisons – where, on what we think was our ninth visit, I finally got to meet the man himself and shake his hand – and then returning home to present our three Thunderbirds-mad kids with a box full of show-related merchandise that I’ve been sent for review purposes. Okay, that last one isn’t quite the same as singing in the middle of a parade, but the shrieks of excitement that emanated from Isaac, Toby and Kara were even better. It’s safe to say they were quite pleased with their unexpected haul.
In short, it was a fantastic day made all the more enjoyable for how rarely an opportunity such as this arises. And to be able to end a child-free day with something that did include the kids was just the cherry on the icing on the cake.
It’s a day I won’t quickly forget, and one that reminds me that we really need to make an effort to do things like this more often, even if on a smaller scale. After all, we’re parents first but we’re also a couple. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that, and for all the times we treat the children it’s important to remember to treat ourselves occasionally, right?
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