Dave Barry's Money Secrets
Page 14
Anyway, to make a long—you have no idea—story short, Fobert’s traveler’s checks were lost or stolen. His passport was also gone. This somehow happened when he was on the plane going to Europe, which I believe is an international-traveler record for losing all your really important possessions.
So Fobert arrived in Europe with no money, and no proof of citizenship. Fortunately he landed in a nation that, in the interest of protecting its identity, I will refer to as Fermany—a casual, laid-back, no-rules kind of place whose Official National Motto is, “Whatever.”
But seriously, the Fermans were pretty good sports about it, holding Fobert for a mere eight hours and never once bringing out the cattle prod. When Fobert finally got out of custody, the U.S. consulate quickly gave him a new passport. And getting the traveler’s checks replaced turned out to be every bit as easy as the Fisa company had promised, provided that you define “easy” as “extremely hard.”
Over the next two weeks, I made numerous telephone calls to a Fisa office in Europe, which in case you were wondering is not a local call from my house. The Fisa people kept telling me they were investigating the matter, but for days they would not tell me what they were investigating, nor when they expected to be finished. Finally, one of them revealed to me that they were trying to determine whether Fobert had been “careless.” This caused me to momentarily lose my temper and shout, “OF COURSE HE WAS CARELESS! HE’S A TEENAGE BOY AND HE’S CARELESS AND HE LOSES THINGS! THAT’S WHY I BOUGHT HIM YOUR [very bad word that, in the interest of protecting its identity, I will refer to as “wucking”] TRAVELER’S CHECKS!”
Finally, after many testy phone calls from me, the Fisa people refunded the money. By then, Fobert was back in the United States, having completed his trip with money I sent to him via Festern Funion.
What is the moral here? The moral is that traveler’s checks, at least Fisa traveler’s checks, are a wonderful idea, provided that you are not careless. In other words, you should buy them only if you will never actually need them. The other moral is that if you permit your teenage child to travel alone to Europe, you are out of your wucking mind.
Another option is to use credit cards, which are lightweight and widely accepted, plus there is always the hope that your plane will crash on the way home and you won’t have to pay the credit card company back. The disadvantage of credit cards is that, if you use them in foreign countries that use foreign currencies such as the peso or the kilometer, you will have no idea what you are actually paying for anything, which means that when you get home and open up your credit card bill, you could discover that when you were in Cairo, you paid $16,000 for a Snickers.
This is why, when I travel, I always carry cash. The danger with cash, of course, is that it makes you a target for professional pickpockets, who, especially in foreign tourist destinations, are so skillful that you won’t notice them until your money is gone. In the photographs below, see if you can spot the professional pickpocket. He’s in all four of the photos, but he’s hard to find because he has mastered the art of using costumes and disguises to blend into any environment:
Which One Is the Pickpocket?
SOURCE: Scotland Yard
Photography Credits
See? You can pore over these photos for hours without spotting the pickpocket! That’s how clever these people are. And that’s why, when you travel abroad with cash, you should do what seasoned world travelers have been doing for years: Keep your money securely in your underpants. This is usually the last place that a pickpocket thinks to look. Another advantage is, when you get a bill at a restaurant, and you start fishing around inside your drawers for the cash, sometimes the waiter will let you have the meal for free.
Speaking of being unwanted, another important security tip for foreign travel is: Do not look like an American. As a nation, we Americans have spent many decades, and trillions of dollars, trying our best to make the rest of the world want to be friends with us, and as a result the rest of the world hates us. This is especially true in places such as Europe, Asia, Africa, South America, Central America, Antarctica, the Moon, and pockets of North America, including Mexico, Canada, and Manhattan Island.
If you plan to travel to any of these areas, for your own safety you must create the impression that you’re not from the United States. Rule one is: Do not wear sneakers. I don’t know why, but the first thing most Americans do, when they’re getting ready for a trip, is go to the mall and purchase new, blindingly white sneakers. Your chunkier, more sedentary Americans also choose to travel in athletic-style warm-up suits, as though they expect to be competing in the 200-meter hurdles, when in fact they will not be doing anything more active on their trip than pointing at the dessert cart.
The result is that a foreign pickpocket can easily spot American tourists: They’re the ones who look like the Senior Weight Watchers track team. You do not want this look. You should dress to blend into the local environment, as we see in these examples:
How to Dress So Foreigners Won’t Know You’re American
Photography Credits
Another good way to blend in when you travel abroad is to speak a foreign language. Most Americans cannot do this, because they speak only English. When confronted with a foreign person who does not speak English, Americans will generally seek to bridge the language gap by speaking English louder (“IS THERE A BIGGER MONA LISA AROUND ANYWHERE?”). So if you want to appear non-American, it helps if you know at least a smattering of some foreign language. Here’s a list of useful phrases you can memorize:
USEFUL FRENCH PHRASES
• Où est l’Internet? (Where is the Internet?)
• Comment venir ces portions sont si sacrées petites? (How come these portions are so darned small?)
• Nous voulons un REPAS, zut, pas un d’oeuvre de hors piquere une crise. (We want a MEAL, dammit, not a freaking hors d’oeuvre.)
• Ces Américains! Qu’un paquet d’idiots! Nous nous sont de la Scandinavie. (Those Americans! What a bunch of idiots! We ourselves are from Scandinavia.)
USEFUL ITALIAN PHRASES
• Dov’è il Internet? (Where is the Internet?)
• Ci sono qualunque gabinetti PULITI in questo paese? (Are there any CLEAN toilets in this country?)
• Quanto costa vedere il Papa? (How much does it cost to see the Pope?)
• Lei tenta di dirme che siamo venuti tutta la maniera da New Jersey—l’attesa no, io Scandinavia media—soltanto di scoprire che IL PAPA NON È DISPONIBILE? (Are you trying to tell me that we came all the way from New Jersey—no, wait, I mean Scandinavia—only to find out that THE POPE IS NOT AVAILABLE?)
USEFUL GERMAN PHRASES
• Wo ist das Internet? (Where is the Internet?)
• Junge, Sie können Leute keinen Weltkrieg, NICHT wahr, gewinnen? (Boy, you people CANNOT win a world war, can you?)
• Die Amerikaner haben wirklich Ihre Esel, nicht wahr getreten? Nicht, dass es irgendein grobes Geschäft zu uns Skandinavier ist. (The Americans really kicked your asses, didn’t they? Not that it’s any big deal to us Scandinavians.)
• Ich werde Sie dies geben: Sie haben ausgezeichnete Toiletten. (I’ll give you this: You have excellent toilets.)
USEFUL SPANISH PHRASES
• ¿Dónde está el Internet? (Where is the Internet?)
• ¿Esta España es, o México? Yo nunca los puedo decir aparte. (Is this Spain or Mexico? I can never tell them apart.)
• Sé uno de ellos le da diarrea. (I know one of them gives you diarrhea.)
• Nosotros no tenemos tequila en nuestra nación de hogar de Scandinavia. (We do not have tequila in our home nation of Scandinavia.)
• ¡Oye! ¡Hay un abigarrando GUSANO en esta botella! (Hey! There is a freaking WORM in this bottle!)
• Usted mira un pleito grave, el señor. (You are looking at a serious lawsuit, mister.)
• Yo no cuido si soy una tradición. Usted perderá sus calzoncillos. (I don’t care if it’s a tradition. You are
going to lose your undershorts.)
USEFUL JAPANESE PHRASES
• (Where is the Internet?)
• (What the hell kind of food is this?)
• (You mean people actually EAT this?)
• (Do you have any entrées WITHOUT eyeballs?)
• (How do you pronounce this Japanese writing?)
• (Even in Scandinavia, which is where we come from, we are still a little ticked off about Pearl Harbor.)
USEFUL CHINESE PHRASES
• (Where is the Internet?)
• (We’re not from around here. We’re from Scandinavia, which is a completely different country from the United States.)
• (God, there’s like MILLIONS of you people.)
• (Seriously, how do you tell yourselves apart?)
• (I don’t get what’s so great about this wall.)
Traveling by Air
Airplanes have really changed the way we travel. In the old days, it could take you literally days to get from New York to Chicago. Now you can simply board a plane at one of the New York metropolitan area’s three convenient airports,* 50 and in just a couple of hours, you will be informed that there is a problem with the warning light on the auxiliary deframbulation extrapolator, and the replacement part has to be brought in from Pittsburgh via canoe, so your flight will not be taking off during the current lunar cycle.
Mechanical delays happen a lot, because airplanes are gigantic complicated machines containing literally millions of parts. Nobody really understands how they work. Every time a flight takes off, the airline mechanics exchange high fives to celebrate the fact that (a) the plane actually got off the ground, and (b) they are not on it. A major reason why the pilots keep the cockpit door shut during flights is so you can’t see them thumbing through the airplane owner’s manual, trying to figure out what the hell all those instruments and switches do.
In addition to mechanical problems, flights are often delayed by bad weather, as pilots often must divert the plane hundreds of miles from the planned route so that they can fly directly into violent storms and cause the plane to shake like a giant paint mixer. This is the only real fun pilots have. If they’re in a frisky mood, they’ll fly a plane through the same thundercloud four or five times.
But the point is that there’s a lot of uncertainty connected with air travel, which is why the first rule for airline passengers is: Be flexible. Don’t be hampered by rigid, preconceived notions of exactly when, or exactly where, the airplane is going to go. If you’re planning to fly from Detroit to London on a certain day, be open to the possibility that you will not necessarily leave on that day, and that you might land in some city other than London, such as Milwaukee, which also offers plenty to see and do.
The second rule for airline passengers is: Shop around for the lowest fare. Buying an airline ticket is very similar to buying a lotto ticket, only with more of an element of chance. Most airlines offer many different fares for each flight, and the fares are constantly changing. Neither you, nor anybody else on the planet including Stephen Hawking, can know ahead of time what random fare the airline computer will decide to charge you.
Say you want to fly from Phoenix to Minneapolis. You go to an Internet travel site, and the computer gives you a roundtrip fare of $159. So you turn to your spouse and say, “Hey, Marge or Bob, depending on your gender! I got us a pretty good price to Minneapolis!”
But when you turn back to your computer screen, BAM, the airline fare computer—which can see you through your computer screen and loves to play pranks—suddenly increases your fare to $386. While you’re absorbing this bad news, BAM, the fare suddenly drops to $17, provided you fly on a weekday containing three or more vowels. This looks like a good deal, so you try to click on it, but before you can, BAM, the fare changes to a flat $7,000 for nonrefundable coach. If you listen carefully, you can actually hear the airline computer chuckling at the expression on your face.
Sometimes an airline computer will get in a really silly mood and decide to change all the fares for a particular flight while the plane is in the air. This means the flight attendants have to pass through the cabin taking money away from some passengers and handing it over to others.
This constant changing of airline fares is very annoying to passengers, but there’s a simple, sound reason why the airlines use this system: They want to annoy their passengers.
No, seriously, there really is a rational economic reason why airline fares are completely insane. I’ve had it explained to me several times, and although I don’t totally understand it, it has something to do with supply and demand and load factors as they relate to the auxiliary deframbulation extrapolator. But never mind the reason. The point is that you can get lower fares if you’re willing to shop around and check for special airline promotions and deals. For example, some airlines will offer discounts if you will agree to sit next to a screaming baby or a large flatulent man with Death Star BO. I get that particular deal all the time.
You also can often get a lower fare by taking connecting, instead of direct, flights. For example, in the case of the Phoenix-to-Minneapolis trip, you can save as much as 30 percent if you don’t mind a two-day layover in Atlanta. Not only will you be paying less, but there’s always a chance that your Phoenix-Atlanta flight will, for one wacky airline reason or another, wind up landing in Minneapolis anyway. Or even London! There’s lots to see and do in London.
Here’s some other helpful information on traveling by air:
Luggage
One option for your luggage is to check it in with the airline. This combines the convenience of not having to lug a bunch of possessions through the airport with the comfort of knowing that you may never see your possessions again. Astronomers using powerful telescopes have detected missing luggage in other galaxies.
The other option is to carry your luggage onto the plane. The key point to remember here is that your luggage must be able to fit into the overhead luggage bin. Let me repeat that:
YOUR CARRY-ON LUGGAGE MUST ACTUALLY FIT INSIDE THE LUGGAGE COMPARTMENT.
Or, to put it another way:
YOUR CARRY-ON LUGGAGE NEEDS TO BE SMALLER THAN THE LUGGAGE COMPARTMENT, SO THAT IT CAN FIT INSIDE.
I apologize for shouting in boldfaced capital letters, but this concept seems to be very difficult for many airline passengers to grasp. I am a frequent flyer, and it seems as if every time I get on a plane, there are passengers ahead of me hauling a suitcase that is clearly larger than the overhead storage bin. Sometimes it’s larger than my first apartment. It’s the Shaquille O’Neal of suitcases.
When these passengers get to their seats, they grab the suitcase handle and, emitting a grunt like a mating boar, heave the suitcase up to the bin, where BONK! it bounces right off, because of course it is too large to fit. It is much too large to fit. Anybody with a rudimentary grasp of spatial relationships, including a reasonably sharp gerbil, can see immediately that any effort to put this particular object into this particular space is—like the marriage of Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley—doomed to fail.
But that does not stop these determined, spatially impaired passengers. They grunt again, heave again, and BONK! the Shaquille suitcase again bounces back. Meanwhile, of course, the boarding process has ground to a halt, because the suitcase heavers are blocking the airplane aisle, the way a dead possum blocks a drainpipe.
Finally a flight attendant* 51 will work her way through the crowd and patiently explain to the passengers that they have to check their giant suitcase. If she didn’t stop them, they would keep grunting, heaving, and bonking it until they weakened the structure of the plane and large chunks of fuselage started to fall off.
True Fact: I have seen passengers argue with the flight attendant that their giant suitcase, which clearly does not fit into the overhead, should fit into the overhead, because—and this is a direct quote—“it’s a carry-on suitcase.” What they mean by this, I believe, is that the suitcase has wheels. So, let us
note the following fact for the record: Just because something has wheels, that does not mean you can carry it onto the airplane. The following objects all have wheels, but not all of them will fit into the overhead storage compartment:
Photography Credits
I apologize for going on at such great length about this, but as you may have gathered, this is a pet peeve of mine. I promise to drop it now and move on with our tips for airline travel.
Airline Security
Before the Age of Terrorism, airline security was pretty relaxed. You could arrive at the airport five minutes before your plane was supposed to take off and sprint straight to your gate. If the plane had already left the gate, you could run out onto the runway, waving your arms. If a uniformed security person blocked your path, you could simply shove him aside and shout, “GET OUT OF MY WAY, YOU FOOL! I HAVE A PLANE TO CATCH!” You could carry a flamethrower onto the plane, as long as you were not actively using it to throw flame. Sometimes, if the pilot was in a good mood or badly hungover, he’d let passengers come up to the cockpit and fly the plane. (“Hi, everybody! My name is Harmon Sperkle. I’m a sales representative in the ceramic tile line, but for the next hour or so I’ll be your pilot while the captain takes a little nap. Let’s see what happens when I pull on this WHOOOOOAAA. . . .”)
Alas, those carefree days are gone. Today, if you want to travel by air, you must go through a series of rigorous tests designed to guard against the danger—which is always lurking, whether we want to think about it or not—that you might actually make your flight. Here are the security basics you need to know:
1. You should arrive at the airport well in advance of your scheduled flight departure time. The Transportation Safety Administration recommends that, for an 8 a.m. flight, you get to the airport “while it is still under construction.” If you are not reading this book at the airport, you are too late.