It’s interesting how often fun that is planned isn’t fun.

Consider the thought, “Let’s take a vacation.” Underpinned by unfounded hope and overlaid with irrational promise, vacations are usually followed by days of physical exhaustion and frayed family finances.

If the term “post vacation syndrome” doesn’t exist, it’s a diagnostic outrage and someone should do something about it.

Many of our happiest moments occur without warning. On the other hand, movies, dinner with friends, having a baby, weekend mini-put- puts, a trip to Dollywood, and building a tree house, don’t lend themselves easily to spontaneity.

Forty-two years ago Gayle and I got married on the spur of the moment, thus avoiding the difficult planning-a-wedding stage.

Don’t do that. It’s way too shocking to your parents.

Twelve years into our marriage, we also made a snap decision to stop using birth control. Our first child was probably conceived within 24 hours. Something eerily similar happened with our second child.

Now it’s true that in our case the marriage and the children worked out just fine, but this is obviously no way to live your life. Planning is best.

But it does come with its own set of problems.

If the mind could dispassionately work out a plan (when planning is a rational option), that would simplify life. But humans have this complicating habit of building expectations at the same time they are laying their plans.

When the idea popped into our minds a few weeks ago to go on an “eating vacation,” we already knew that if we were going to do this, we must not have expectations. Actually, it’s probably helpful to be downright pessimistic and cynical.

The way this all came about was that we had just received a surprise gift basket from the Sedona Fudge Company. We thought, “There’s never too much of a good thing; why not take a vacation in Sedona and eat all the fudge we want?”

Why not? And why limit it to fudge?