Sometimes I feel I’ve got to TAKE

SOMETIMES, reality is a bitch, you know? Say your day goes like this: First, you sleep through your alarm. Then you cut yourself while shaving (your face, leg, whatever). Your gas tank is dangerously low, but you don’t have time to stop. So you coast to work on fumes and then can’t find a spot to park. You end up on the street, stuffing odd coins in a meter.

Then the day progresses: Your boss reminds you to put a cover sheet on your TPS report (see “Office Space,” 1999 and page 22), you eat a Snickers bar for lunch, you doze through the afternoon and just as you’re getting ready to leave, your boss gives you a project that has to be in by tomorrow morning.

By the time you get back to your car – remember your car? – you find a $20 ticket on the windshield. And, of course, you run out of gas on the way home.

You need to get away, pal. Far, far away.

Here’s the deal, though: A getaway, a true getaway, doesn’t mean that you have to charge three grand on your Visa card for a weekend romp in Maui.

Not that doing so is a bad idea.

It’s just that there are many kinds of getaways. Some involve travel, sure, but others require only imagination. You can always find a way to enjoy yourself, even when courting bankruptcy. Following are just a few suggestions about how easy it is to just …

get …

away.

1. Do a sixer

OK, so the movies are the natural refuge of the film critic. But I’m not talking just about taking in a matinee or two. I’m talking about making a real moviegoing sojourn.

And you’ll get a perfect chance on Oct. 9. That’s when Spokane’s CenterStage Dinner Theater is beginning what it calls “The Worst Midnight Movie Series Ever.” First up is “Attack of the Killer Tomatoes” (1978), Robert De Bello’s comic-horror about hungry veggies.

So here’s what you do. Following a typical Friday movie schedule, you could go see, say, “Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow” at 11:50 a.m., “Resident Evil: Apocalypse” at 2:35 p.m., “Napoleon Dynamite” at 4:55 p.m., “Hero” at 6:55 p.m. and then “Collateral” at 9:30 p.m.

That lets you walk out of the theater just in time to douse your eyes with Murine and take in the midnight show at CenterStage, making it six in a row.

You’ll feel like Cecil B. DeMille.

2. Brave a whiteout

Sometimes you do need a getaway car, preferably one with a full tank of gas.

That’s the only way to follow the advice given by my friend, and former Spokesman-Review food writer, Leslie Kelly.

“Drive to Sandpoint,” Leslie says, “in a blinding snowstorm.”

I did it once. Actually, I drove back from Sandpoint in a storm so bad that I couldn’t tell what was Highway 95 and what was grass fields.

But your destination doesn’t have to be Sandpoint. Trekking to Steptoe Butte would work as well. Or if you’re really ambitious, head for Stevens Pass and try to get through it, without chains, before it closes.

It might not exactly be fun. But you probably won’t be concerned about TPS reports, either.

3. Imitate Julia Child

Next time you’re in a bookstore, check out the cookbook section. You can find recipes for meals from every part of the planet, from Kyrgyzstan (fermented mare’s milk) to South Korea (kimch’i).

So here’s the challenge: Don’t just crack open another can of SpaghettiOs. Try to cook something exotic. A mole poblano from Mexico (chicken or turkey served with a mole sauce), for example, or a risotto con salvia from Italy (rice cooked with sage).

If you’re particularly brave, try a soufflé. Which, of course, is French.

But don’t hold that against it.

4. Play Harry Potter

Role-playing games – also known as RPGs – have been around in one form or another since the first human stepped out of a cave.

Think anyone in his or her right mind was going to brave the darkness without pretending to be a shaman or something?

Say Dungeons & Dragons to someone and visions of wizards and potions and axes and tunnels and magic creatures come to mind. No wonder games can last literally years.

But, thanks to the Internet, RPGs have evolved far past D&D’s 30-year-old roots.

Spokane gamer Rishi Saez, for example, is now involved in an online RPG called “City of Heroes.”

“I’m playing a dark spellcaster that can eventually summon a small legion of wraiths (ghost-like spectre thingies) to fight for me,” Saez says. “Necromancers are a popular choice, because who doesn’t like zombies?”

Anyone who doesn’t like them is free to do a more social kind of RPG.

Karaoke, anyone?

5. It looks like forever

It’s not as if anyone is going to mistake the Spokane Valley for Glacier National Park.

But seen from the bluff that shoulders the building once known as the Royal Riblet Mansion, now known as the Cliff House, the Valley is more easy on the eyes than it has any right to be.

Even if you don’t look off into the distance, the 75 acres that surround the Cliff House are enough to make you think that your young girl named Alice has found her wonderland. From the gardens and vineyard to the life-size checker board to the mansion itself, this place is clearly a refuge from the buzz of real life as it’s lived 450 feet below (where the Spokane River flows).

And if that isn’t enough, there’s a tasting room in which the owners of the property – who run the Arbor Crest Wine Cellars – pour glasses of their various labels to anyone (age 21 and older) who expresses interest.

After a sip or three, that smile you’re wearing? You can describe it in two words:

Cheshire Cat.

6. Paging all you book-lovers

Nothing invites you into a world of fantasy more than a book.

No, not even a movie.

There are libraries and bookstores (used and new) all over Spokane and Coeur d’Alene that serve as perfect escapes from the real world.

You can listen to a great selection of music at any of the Borders, Barnes & Noble and even Hastings stores, each of which offers listening posts. You can drink good coffee at most of them, and even down a pastry or two.

And most of the stores – including Auntie’s Bookstore in downtown Spokane – offer big comfortable chairs to just kick back and read anything available on the shelves, whatever the genre.

And … it’s … free.

7. Try a no-tell motel

Anyone can pull out a credit card and go to a resort.

But say you want to relax, oh, for an hour or two. Where do you go?

Can you say Al’s Spa Tub Motel? And don’t you just love that name?

With 14 rooms, seven of which come equipped with spa tubs and queen-size beds (the VIP Room has a queen and a king), Al’s Spa Tub Motel charges $49 a night with a refundable $15 deposit.

Two hours in a standard room runs $25. Add $10 for a spa-tub room.

“And we don’t even raise our prices on the weekend for overnight rates like some people do,” said the polite woman manager, who declined to give her name.

Oh, and each room has a television with satellite television.

“And the question that you want to ask, but you’re afraid to is – we have adult movies,” the manager said. “But we don’t make you watch ‘em.”

That’s good. A getaway is one thing.

Too much of a good thing is quite another.