by Dave Barry
ME: I need to go to Tampa on Thursday.
RAMONA (checking her computer): No, not Thursday.
ME: No?
RAMONA: No, because there’s a $600 penalty if you fly on a Thursday during a month whose name contains two or more vowels following two straight quarters of increased unemployment unless you are a joint taxpayer filing singly with two or more men on base provided that you spend at least one Saturday night in a hotel room within twelve feet of a malfunctioning ice machine and you undergo a ritual initiation ceremony wherein airline ticket agents dance around you and put honey-roasted peanuts up your nose. me: Book me on the Singapore flight.
Renting A Car
Renting a car offers many attractive advantages to the traveler: independence, convenience, dependability, and a sudden, massive lowering of the IQ. I know what I’m talking about here. I live in Miami, and every winter we have a huge infestation of rental-car drivers, who come down here seeking warm weather and the opportunity to make sudden left turns without signaling across six lanes of traffic into convenience stores (No, not into the parking lots. Into the stores). My wife and I have affectionately nicknamed these people “Alamos,” because so many of them seem to rent their cars from Alamo, which evidently requires that every driver leave several major brain lobes as a deposit. We’ll be driving along, and the driver in front of us will engage in some maneuver that is boneheaded even by the standards of Miami (official motoring motto: “Death Before Yielding”), and we’ll shout, “Look out! Alamos!” We’re tempted to stay off the highways altogether during tourist season, just stockpile food and spend the entire winter huddled in our bedrooms, but we’re not sure we’d be safe there.
Not that I feel superior to the Alamos. I’ve rented many cars myself, and I have to admit that as soon as I get behind the wheel, I go into Bozo Mode. For one thing, I am instantly lost, and the only guidance I have is the rental-car-agency map, the sole function of which apparently is to show you the location of the rental-car agency. So I’m disoriented, plus I’m constantly trying to adjust the mirrors, seat, air conditioning, steering wheel, etc., plus—this is the most important part—I have to find a good radio station. This means I am devoting only about 2 percent of my brain to actually driving the car. And thus I—a person who tends to be extremely critical of other people’s driving—am transformed into an Alamo, drifting along at 27 miles per hour in the left lane of the interstate, with my left blinker on, trying to locate the FM button. Maybe, as a warning to other drivers, the federal government should require that all rental cars must have giant orange question marks sticking up out of their roofs.
Choosing A Car-Rental Company
The car-rental industry is extremely competitive, and often you can find some really good “deals” by keeping your eyes “peeled” for advertisements that look like this:
Why Pay More? Rent a Car for Just $3.99 a Week!! Including Unlimited Mileage!! Big Bob’s Car Rental & Miniature Golf & Full-Body Massage
Certain restrictions apply to this offer, such as to get the actual car you have to ride our “Courtesy Van,” which runs only during Lent, from the airport to our rental facility, which is in the Soviet Union, where you will have to wait in line behind people who have been there since the Ford administration because our rental fleet consists of a 1971 Plymouth Valiant with a tendency to catch fire, so we definitely recommend the insurance.
As a “smart shopper,” you will definitely save “big money” by taking advantage of bargains such as these, although you should of course insist that the agency person explain the terms of the rental agreement before you sign it:
You: What does this mean?
AGENCY PERSON: What does what mean?
YOU: This part here, where it says, “Renter agrees that we get to keep his house.”
AGENCY PERSON: Oh, that. Nothing. You (relieved): Whew.
Types Of Luggage
The type of luggage you carry says a lot about you. For example, if you’re carrying somebody else’s luggage, it says you’re a thief.
No, seriously, luggage is important, which is why most frequent travelers spend their entire lives looking for Exactly the Right Piece of Luggage, the one that is nice and compact but holds a lot of stuff. This is a waste of time, of course, because the truth is that a piece of luggage is nothing but a bag or a box with a handle on it, and under the laws of physics, which are strictly enforced in luggage, the size of the bag or the box determines how much it will hold, as can be seen in the following chart:
Size Of Luggage Unit Amount Of Stuff Luggage Unit Will Hold
Small Small amount
Medium Medium amount
Large Large amounts But still not enough
The infrequent traveler generally accepts these limitations and purchases one of those enormous, hard-sided suitcases that have wheels and weigh about 87 pounds even when they’re empty. But your frequent traveler never abandons the quest to find a miracle luggage unit that can hold more than it can actually hold. Over the course of a lifetime the frequent traveler will purchase dozens of luggage units, frequently from advertisements in airline in-flight magazines. You’ve probably seen the advertisements. There’s a picture of what appears to be an ordinary carry-on suitcase, underneath which are about 70,000 words, which begin:
AMAZING LUGGAGE BREAKTHROUGH!
A recent scientific discovery by researchers at the Stanford University School of Luggage Science has made possible the REVOLUTIONARY new Laser 300OX Total Carry-on Wardrobe Unit! Although smaller than a standard clarinet case, this incredible unit, thanks to advanced luggage technology, can easily hold: Eight men’s suits OR 14
women’s full-length evening gowns PLUS All the shirts, socks, ties, underwear, and clothing accessories you would need for two terms in Congress PLUS All your toiletries
PLUS An actual working toilet And that’s not all! How many times have you said to yourself, as a busy business traveler: “Why can’t they design a carry-on bag with a space for my tennis rackets, golf clubs, skis, and volleyball equipment?” Well, look no farther, because the Laser 300OX ...
And so on. Ordinarily you would take one look at this kind of advertisement and say, hey, get serious. But in the airplane environment, where you have nothing else to do except watch the movie, (Rocky XVII, the one where he has surgery so his eyelids can open all the way) you find yourself reading all the way through it, and by the time you’re on your third Bloody Mary, and you’ve reached the part where the advertisement claims that this suitcase will do your tax returns for you, you’re thinking, “Hey! This could be the answer to my luggage needs!” So you whip out your Visa or MasterCard and fill out the order form, and six to ten weeks later you receive: a bag with a handle. A small bag with a handle. Which, if you really pack it right, will hold two pairs of socks PLUS your dental floss. I know what I’m talking about! I have seventeen of these things!
How Much Luggage You Can Carry On A Commercial Airline Flight
Federal Airline Administration regulations state that each passenger may have up to 17,000 pounds of carry-on luggage provided that he or she can jam it all into the overhead baggage compartment. I am a veteran traveler, but I am still amazed at how much stuff some people will try to get up there. Entire households, sometimes. These people are always directly in front of me. “What do you mean, I can’t carry this on?!” they’ll say to the airline personnel. “I ALWAYS carry this on!”
“Sir,” the airline personnel will say, “that’s a lawn tractor.
“But look!” the person will say. “It fits in the overhead baggage compartment!” And the person will actually attempt to shove it in there, which is of course impossible because (a) the tractor is too large, and (b) the compartment already contains some other passenger’s upright piano. But this will not stop the person from trying. No human emotion is more powerful than the grim determination of an airline passenger attempting to shove an inappropriate object into the overhead baggage compartment.
&n
bsp; What To Pack
There are two major schools of thought on how to pack for traveling. These are known technically as “my school” and “my wife’s school.” My school of packing is that you should never carry more things than you can fit into a standard sandwich bag. This way you never put yourself in a position where you have to turn your belongings over to a commercial airline’s crack Luggage Hiding Department (traces of airline luggage have been found on Mars). So I travel very light, and I’ve found that this is really not a problem, once I get adjusted to the stench resulting from wearing the same shirts and socks and, of course, underwear for as long as two weeks running. The advantage of this is that I get plenty of room to stretch out on airplanes, because nobody will sit near me. The disadvantage is that the flight attendants also stay away, preferring to serve my dinner entree by flipping it at me Frisbee-style from as far as 25 feet away, and some of those airline entrees are hard enough to kill a person (Such as lasagna).
My wife, on the other hand, would not think of leaving the house for even a half hour without sufficient possessions in her purse alone to establish a comfortable wilderness homestead. So when we travel, she packs many, many items. She buys these giant suitcases, manufactured by shipbuilders, and she packs them with items for every conceivable contingency. Like, if we’re going someplace in the tropics, she’ll naturally pack an entire set of lightweight outfits, but she’ll also pack an entire set of medium-weight outfits, in case we have a cool snap; and a set of heavy outfits, in case we get locked inside a meat freezer; and a waffle iron, in case we get hungry for waffles while we’re in there; and so on. So we generally arrive at the airport with virtually all of our worldly possessions, looking like Cambodian refugees, except that we appear to be actually taking Cambodia with us. Our carry-on luggage alone is enough to prevent many planes from ever leaving the ground. They’ll taxi down the runway, gaining speed, then, after a violent grunting effort to take off, they’ll continue right on taxiing, sometimes right into a harbor. This doesn’t worry us, however, because my wife always brings plenty of scuba equipment.
Bonus Packing Tip: How To Pack A Suit So It Won’t Come Out Wrinkled
Lay the suit on its back on a flat surface such as a tennis court. Take the sleeves and place them at the side. Take the left sleeve and place it on the suit’s hip, and hold the right sleeve over the suit’s head as though the suit is waving in a jaunty manner. Now put both sleeves straight up over the suit’s head and shout, “Touchdown!” Ha ha! Isn’t this fun? You may feel stupid, but trust me, you’re not half as stupid as the people who think they can fold a suit so it won’t come out wrinkled.
Chapter Two. How To Speak A Foreign Language In Just 30 Minutes
Without Necessarily Having Any Idea What You Are Saying
One of the great things about being an American, aside from the constitutionally guaranteed freedom to have obscene bumper stickers, is that so many foreign people speak our language (English). You can walk the streets of just about any major city in the world, and as soon as the natives realize that you’re an American, they’ll make you feel right at home.
“Stick them up!” they’ll say. “Please to be handing over your American Express traveler’s checks! Don’t leave home without them!”
Yes, they are clever, those natives. Nevertheless, you may sometimes find yourself in a foreign situation wherein members of the local population, because of a poor educational system or sheer laziness, have not learned to speak your language fluently. This can lead to serious problems, as when for example you’re in Spain, attempting to obtain a chicken-salad sandwich, and you wind up with a dish whose name, when you look it up in your Spanish/English dictionary, turns out to mean “Eel with the Big Abscess.” This is why I strongly recommend that before you travel abroad, you learn to speak a foreign language, ideally the same one that is spoken in whatever country you’re going to.
Of course you probably think it’s hard to learn another language, because you spent years studying foreign languages in high school, and all you can remember is being forced to confiscate verbs and memorize those moronic dialogues wherein everybody seemed to be obsessed with furniture:
PIERRE: Voici le bureau de mon oncle. (“Here is the bureau of my uncle.”)
JACQUES: Le bureau de votre oncle est right prochain de la table de ma tante. (“The bureau of your uncle is right next to the table of my aunt.”)
MARIE: Qui donne un merde? (“Who gives a shit?”)
I took an estimated two thousand years of high school French, and when I finally got to France, I discovered that I didn’t know one single phrase that was actually useful in a real-life French situation. I could say, “Show me the fish of your brother Raoul,” but I could not say, “Madame, if you poke me one more time with that umbrella I am going to jam it right up one of your primary nasal passages,” which would have been extremely useful.
So what you need, as a traveler, is to learn practical foreign expressions. Let’s say you’re in a very swanky Paris restaurant that has earned the coveted “Five-Booger” ranking from the prestigious Michelin Guide to How Snotty a Restaurant Is. You cannot be asking these people to show you the fish of their brother Raoul. You will want to use simple, foolproof phrases such as the following.
Practical French Restaurant Phrases
Garr,on! Je suis capable de manger un cheval! (“Waiter! I could eat a horse!”) Apportez-moi quelques aliments franqaise ici pronto sur la double! (“Bring me some French food immediately!”) Mettez-le smaque dabbe sur la table. (“Put it smack dab on the table.”) Attendez une minute au jus dernier! (“Wait just a darned minute!”) Qu’est-ce 1’enfer que c’est? (“What is this the hell that this is?”) Attemptez-vous A yanquer ma chaine, boudet? (“Are you trying to yank my chain, buddy?”) Je donne madam CHAT plus viande que cette! (“I give my damn CAT more meat than this!”) Sacre moo! Ce EST mon chat! (“Holy cow! This IS my cat!”)
Other Practical French Phrases
Nous sommes suppose a faire peepee ICI? (“We’re supposed to pee HERE?”)
Mais nous sommes droit dans le friggant RUE. (“But we’re right in the goshdarn STREET.”)
y a des RELIGIEUSES regardant nous. (“There are NUNS watching us.”)
Dites, cette religieuse est hot. (“Say, that nun is fairly attractive.”)
Peut-etre j’ai been en France trop longue. (“Perhaps I have been in France too long.”)
Practical Spanish Phrases
In the Restaurant:
Camarero, hay una mosca en mi sopa. (“Waiter, there is a fly in my soup.”)
Pero esa mosca es atarado al pantalones. (“But this fly is attached to a pair of pants.”)
Riding Public Transportation:
Jey, no es anybody pilotando ese autobus? (“Hey, isn’t anybody driving this bus?”)
ESE es el piloto? (“THAT’S the driver?”)
El hombre que dormir en el charco de saliva? (“The man sleeping in the Puddle of saliva?.”)
Quiza deberias empujar los frenos. (“Maybe we should apply the brakes.”)
Que the hell usted decir, una cabra ha comido los frenos? (“What do you mean, a goat ate the brakes?”)
Porque estan mi frente marcas de preguntas al reves? (“Why are my front question marks upside down?”)
During Festivals:
Mi (esposo, esposa) es been tramplado por toros. (“My [husband, wife] has been trampled by bulls.”)
No, no estoy quejarsando. (“No, I’m not complaining.”)
Emergency Medical Phrases:
Muchacho, es mi booty dolorido desde ese caso de los trots! (“Boy, is my butt sore from this diarrhea!”)
El hace yo pasar como el tarde Campos de Totie! (“It’s making me walk like the late Totie Fields!”)
Practical Italian Phrases
Non desear chiunque ferire or nothing. (“We don’t want anybody should get hurt.”)
Tuo fratello Raoul dormi con los pesces. (“Your brother Raoul sleeps with the
fishes.”)
Practical German Phrases
Achtung! (“Gesundheit!”)
Enschreitenblatten Schalteniedlich Verkehrsge sellschaft! (“Ha ha!”)
Ich veranlassenarbeitenworken mein Mojo. (“I have got my mojo working.”)
Chapter Three. Air Travel (Or: Why Birds Never Look Truly Relaxed)
You’re probably not going to believe this, but there are still some people, in this modern day and age, who are afraid of air travel. Ha ha! Are they a bunch of Nervous Nellies, or what?
Oh, sure, air travel seems dangerous to the ignorant layperson, inasmuch as it involves hurtling through the air seven miles straight up trapped inside an object the size of a suburban ranch home in total defiance of all known laws of physics. But statistics show that, when you’re in an airplane, you’re actually four times as safe as when you’re driving your car on an interstate highway (Provided that you are driving drunk and blindfolded)!
Nevertheless, many of us, even veteran fliers, tend to be a little edgy about air travel these days, because it seems as if hardly a day goes by that we don’t pick up a newspaper and see headlines like: