The hot new term polluting the airwaves is “stay-cation.”

What it means in reality is no beach, no mountains, no money and no fun. The thought is instead of going on vacation, one simply has a vacation at home.

It is a term that is being pushed at us so maybe we will feel just a little better about an economy that has been given the last rites and so the thought of sitting at home (if you still have one) for two weeks will seem a little more special than it does during the other 50 weeks a year.

News flash, the time I spend at home is why I WANT to go on vacation.

I suppose that thought of a day trip to Jasper or Bicknell might be necessary at some point this summer, but packaging it as vacation substitute for the white sands of Waikiki must violate some natural law.

I thought that maybe going to French Lick might be a nice alternative to a four-day junket to Sin City, but then I realized how bad I would feel losing at the casino and then realizing I was broke — and still in French Lick.

My wife has taking the “stay-cation” to the next level, with a “mental stay-cation.”

In the morning, she has been brewing up an exotic blend of Folgers and Maxwell House, while listening to dulcid, beach-inspired sounds of Radio Margaritaville, giving her exactly 11 minutes of mental tiki torches and cognitive clambakes, before cleaning up puppy poo and racing off to drop someone off at basketball camp. I think this is the worst type of “stay-cation” because not only are you in the same place as you started, you still have to brush your teeth before starting the rest of your “stay-cation” day. And since she is so hot on the “mental stay-cation” this year, I think I’ll take the same approach with the “mental remodel” of the kitchen. I guess I’ll watch HGTV and imagine someone is working on the kitchen.

I think the kids are the ones who suffered the least by a “stay-cation.” For the most part, a good “stay-cation” is any amount of time children spend with a hose in their hands. One can simply watch children engage in behavior that would have propagated a federal investigation if it had happened at Gitmo.

The best thing about wet children is there is no such thing as “plausible denibility.” One child is wet and the other is dry with a hose in their hands. It is hard to look innocent at that point. Plus the screaming and crying for an hour can easily simulate any extended trip longer than from home to Wal-Mart.

I’m sure there are plenty of wonderful day trips and sites to see in the area, but they are not vacations. Vacations come with a certain level of stress and expense that could not be handled on a day-to-day basis. This is the SPECIAL stress that you save up all year for (like standing in a GM dealership in Gatlinburg and staring at a repair invoice equal to the beachfront condo that you can no longer afford). And what does one do on a rain day when you are on “stay-cation”? In Orlando, one would go to the aquarium when it’s too wet for theme park fun. I believe I’ll just take a dozen fish sticks out of the freezer and charge the kids $2 to look at them. Heck, for two bucks more I’ll throw them in the bath with them and it will be like swimming with dolphins.

Another vacation mainstay for our family is Denny’s. On vacation, our children believe that pancakes are the national food of Myrtle Beach, S.C., and luckily for us, it is never hard to find a Denny’s near by locally. And come “Stay-cation week,” if that means laying out $4.99 for a Grand Slam every morning instead of $1,800 for a condo, that is a deal I will take any day (except Sunday, because checkout is at 10 a.m. and I want to beat the traffic to my mailbox).