I am a social worker, so I should know better, but I did it anyway.

I took my laptop on vacation to "get a little work done."

Mixing work and play is as American as biscuits and gravy, fireworks and the Fourth of July, and movie stardom and the Betty Ford Center.

It is part of our fabric, but taking work on vacation makes you an American all-star of cardiac arrest. I am actually pretty good about separating church and state as well as work and home life, but this was a special occasion. There were deadlines, timetables, tide charts and calendars to attend to.

OK, there were no tide charts, but you get the picture.

If I had to identify the single biggest culprit to poor mental health, it would likely be the compromised boundaries between work and home. Simply put, taking work back to the house will cause cognitive slips quicker than a hike to Manoa Falls. Take work with you while on vacation and sprained ankles will be the least of your worries. But like I said, this was a special occasion.

Besides we all know what happens when you go on vacation: You fall months behind in your work!

So I packed my golf clubs and my laptop, my bowling ball and my PDA, my fishing rod and my cell phone and boarded a flight to Hilo with family in tow for a little R&R.

Can you spell s-e-t u-p t-o f-a-i-l.

The crazy thing is, it was my idea to take the laptop in the first place. I could have easily gone au naturel, but nooo, for some reason I believed that I would have time to pound out a few thousand words while sipping a cold one with Grandpa on the front porch. Duh.

I arrived Friday afternoon and headed straight to UH-Hilo to take advantage of the wireless connection. My plan was to pull up a bench near the campus center, enjoy the flora and fauna, and plug away while my family sat on the front porch with Grandpa. I was definitely on the losing end of this deal.

Then a miraculous thing happened: the computer locked down. I felt like Martha Burk standing outside the gates of Augusta National.

I tried everything. I disconnected and reconnected all the wires, turned it on and off, re-loaded all the devices, control- alt-deleted it twice, and even kicked the bugger (aka the hard boot). Nothing.

I did everything but get the National Council of Women's Organizations to form a picket line.

After an hour of frustration, with madness lurking around the corner, I made the glorious transition from the ridiculous to the sublime. I smiled. There was nothing I could do, literally, and that is when my vacation started. I headed home to Grandpa's house, and without saying a word, reached into the cooler, pulled up a chair and put my feet up on the rail.

For the next two weeks, I basked in the glory of nothingness. I had nowhere to go, no one to see and nothing to do. Boy, was it something!

Michael C. DeMattos is a faculty member in the University of Hawai'i school of social work. He lives in Kane'ohe with his wife, daughter and two dogs.