Some of my friends and family travel a lot. Like every day during the week. I have been traveling every other week for two months. And I want to buy those people a new job.

Can you buy a person a job?

I’m sure I couldn’t afford it. But, seriously, the romantic part of travel disappears after about Day Three for me. And today I realized it is best summed up by Breakfast With Strangers.

I love that my hotel offers free breakfast. It should. For the price I pay, that breakfast should be delivered to my door on good china by a white-haired lady with an English accent wearing a starched, white apron. And, there should be a rose on the tray.

Instead, I choose a seat in the far corner of the dining room and try to look preoccupied with my smart phone, or the t.v. news, or the delicious bowl of cold cereal before me.

But I cannot help myself. I am drawn toward the visual circus of humanity on display. I understand allowing small children to toddle into the public breakfast room in their jammies. Even school age children if the jammies are relatively clean and unrumpled.

But the plus-sized granny in her fuchsia bathing suit who stopped by for a bite on the way to the pool? Someone do me a favor and go back to the room for her bathrobe!

And the lady in the short, black dress with the dazzling jewels around her neck. Funeral? Wedding? The sandals seem a bit casual for either.

Of course, I get completely sidetracked at these communal meals because I start making up stories in my head for all these live-action characters. It is exhausting!

And, what’s worse, I start worrying that they are making up stories about me! Or whispering to one another about that weird lady with the rumpled shirt who is staring at them and who drinks Diet Coke for breakfast.

By the time I get back to my room, I’m longing for the quiet routine of home. Breakfast with Strangers is exhausting.