SCHEDULING in some weekend fun is a great idea until you have to see the plan through. Here are the activities you’ll hate yourself for when doomsday arrives.
Hosting a dinner party
Seems great, until you realise you’ll have to spend Friday night cleaning your disgusting house and Saturday hemorrhaging money at the supermarket and battling to cook a three-course meal for people with six different dietary requirements. Sunday will be nothing but dishwasher after dishwasher load with a thumping hangover as your reward.
Visiting the in-laws
You never see your in-laws and with good reason: they’re bastards. But you feel obliged to make the effort at least once a year and May is a really long way off. Except it’s not. Before you know it you’ll be on the stopper train to Bolton wondering why you inflicted two days of passive aggression and disappointing biscuits on yourself.
A night out at the theatre
A musical or a pretentious serious play, a comedy or a dance extravaganza – they’re all a big chunk of your precious weekend. You’ll regret it even more when you find you’re more excited about the overpriced sweets you bought in the interval than the show itself. And don’t forget you’ve got a rushed 5pm dinner in an Italian chain restaurant to dread beforehand as well.
Brunch with friends
Seems like such a lovely idea until you realise you’ve got to set your alarm on a Saturday morning. And then everybody turns up a bit late and a bit stressed and there are no tables at any of the places where you actually wanted to go. You’ll soon be bloated, tired and not pissed as you’d hoped, and it won’t even be midday.
Family time
There’s nothing like scheduled fun as a family, right? Wrong. Nothing ruins a weekend as comprehensively as your children, so expect them to moan, sigh and go on about needing the toilet on a nature walk or trip to a museum. You’ll soon be wishing you’d just let them spend 48 hours on their iPads like a normal weekend.
No plans
You can leave a gap on the calendar to be at home and unwind and just do nothing. But come Saturday lunchtime you’ll be restless and bored and will start panic-texting friends, who are all busy seeing through their plans they wish they hadn’t made. You’ll end up being cornered into a boxset marathon that leaves you disorientated and empty inside.
