Commonplace Thoughts of a Residual Welshman: Top Ten Difficult Moments When Traveling
What is the worst thing that can happen to you when you are
traveling? As I am traveling a lot these
days, I decided to make a Lettermanesque list of the top ten bad things that
can happen to you when you’re traveling. You can decide for yourself if I am
right.
10. You packed too
much. Yes, that’s right, even for the
seasoned traveler, there is at tendency to overpack. I am in Romania as I write this, and when my
wife saw how little I was taking she said, “No way. That’s not enough.” But,
for the first time in my married life, she was wrong. I did pack enough, barely. Okay, so she was
pretty close to right.
9. You can discover that you used someone else’s toothbrush
by accident. Now some of you are thinking this should be number one. But it is
not. Why? This rarely happens, but I have had it happen. And it is gross, but not as bad as number 8.
8. You lose your passport, and you didn’t bother to make a xerox
or photograph of it. Hassle city in either case. Sorry!
7. Some son-of-a-bugger cuts in line while you’re patiently
waiting to get into a museum, or board a plane, or even just check out of the
grocery store. Yep, that’s a pisser. There’s
no point in complaining. They will pretend to know no English.
6. Your luggage gets lost. Really lost. Like it’s five to eight
days lost, and you’re now in another city, and it’s still lost. Good news/bad
news. You just bought a new wardrobe—that’s the good news. Bad news: you skipped the $12 trip insurance that
covered lost luggage. Crud.
5. Your glasses break. Yep, that happened to me on this trip.
So you go to get new ones. But, because you’re in Wales, they don’t allow you
to get them without a “valid” (=within one year) prescription. But your exam was a year and 2 weeks
ago. “Sorry, not ‘valid’.” Ugh!
So you call your ophthalmologist and convince him to change the date. He
does so, but it will now cost you a really expensive gift that you will have to
bring all the way from Wales for him. Still, things could be worse. Try number 4.
4. Strike. Yes, strike.
The Europeans (especially the Italians?) seem to love to have strikes. And
somehow they time them for when you need to travel. So the busses and trains both
shut down. Seriously? You kiddin’ me?
3. Your kid falls off a skateboard and knocks out her front
teeth. Yep, that happened to me when I was in Africa. With my wife. My poor eldest
daughter had to handle everything. There’s a special place in Heaven for her.
There definitely is.
2. You wind up in a TB ward because you broke a few ribs falling
when you got out of the shower. In Ukraine. You just can’t make this stuff up. So, when you get home you have to be tested
for TB. Yikes!
1. You simply have no toilet paper at a very, very
inopportune moment. You’re already in a men’s or women’s room that is hygienically
unacceptable—no toilet seat; yep, none. And you really need to be in that
bathroom because you were apparently not used to the water or the food or
something… well you can do the math. And only after you’ve taken care of your
emergency—for it was an emergency—do you
realize that the dispenser has nothing to dispense. So you use your teeth or a
nail clipper or a match or something to rend your underwear into pieces to use
as “substitute toilet paper” and then you go commando the rest of the day. You can see why this one is at the top of the
list. I am glad to say that it has only happened
to me once.
Thanks for reading. Sorry to close with the grossest one, but it is number 1 for a reason. And you can see why I did not put any pictures in the blog. No need. The images dance off the page.
Bon voyage. Gute
Reisen! Happy travels!
