cupcake but not as sweet. On the vacation issue... First, most USAians don't GET paid vacations, and can't afford to take unpaid time off unless there is no other way to avoid it. For those who are lucky enough to get paid vacation time, it's often quite difficult to get it scheduled with one's employer, especially in this period of intentional short-staffing -- "you can't take two weeks -- or even one whole week -- off, this-this-and-this all need to be done and we need you here to do it". Many employers would rather have the employees stay on the job and pay them the vacation time as a chunk of cash at the end of the year than have them out of the workplace. If there are multiple working people in the family, it can be a nightmare coordinating time off between the different employers, and if there are children in school, it's even worse. It is Greatly Frowned Upon to remove one's child from school for "frivolous" purposes (which is really anything but illness or funerals); parents are expected to do these things on the scheduled school breaks. Unfortunately, there are millions of other parents also trying to do the same thing at the same time (most schools schedule their week-long breaks within the same two-week blocks in February and April -- ditto with college students and their March break), which means that it's even more difficult to get the days off, desirable vacation destinations are swarming with