humor

Walk your own path and be yourself

The website increases my excitement when I read, __ark, the pies are calling!_ My excitement is short-lived, however. I read the page again and realize that it is __ipes_ that are calling, not __ies_ as I had hoped. I am disappointed. I personally react better to the call of pies.

The innocent-sounding words __es, it__ close enough to walk_ can easily lure the unsuspecting tourist into an exhausting day-long climb, requiring supplemental oxygen, crampons, and a pickax.

The drive to Santa Fe on I-25 is midly zen. There are public road signs that say "Gusty Winds May Exist". This seems more like lazy philosophy than travel advice.

Life is way too short to get lost, so follow the script the way it comes and keep changing the checkpoints on every page.

I wish I were rich enough to endow a prize for the sensible traveler: £10,000 for the first man to over Marco Polo__ outward route, reading three fresh books a week, and another £10,000 if he a drinks a bottle of wine a day as well. That man might tell one something about the journey. He might or might not be naturally observant. But at least he would use what eyes he had, and would not think it necessary to dress up the result in thrills that never happened and science no deeper than its own jargon.

I would advise the curious reader to keep in mind the old adage __ruth is stranger than fiction._ Expect the most outlandish, fantastic and unbelievable elements of this story to be true, and the more low-key elements to be fudged.

Albatrosses and penguins are the last birds I'd want to murder.

Elvira, as befitting one who represented a magazine, registered first and demanded a room and bath. She pronounced it "bawth." The clerk seemed aghast at the request. However, in that hotel, any lady got whatever she asked for. It was her unquestioned right, as a lady. But there was no bath in the hotel, nor running water for that matter. The clerk faltered out something about a nice bowl and pitcher in every room, and said he thought they could provide a foot tub. He was sorry; there was no bath. Elvira couldn't grasp the situation. She thought the clerk was stupid--a hotel without a bath was a contradiction in terms. When she explained that she wanted something for complete immersion, the clerk seemed embarrassed. At his wits' end, he suggested (blushing like fire) that the colored boy could bring up the hog scalder.

I bought the wrong face soap. Why? Because it says smooth face cleanser on it. I put it on my face and I'm fairly certain it's lotion. I also bought something that says "Body soufflé." What is that? Is it a lotion? Is it shower gel? Am I supposed to eat it?

We believed Paris was the start of us. It's the kind of city that makes you think of beginnings, or even juicy middles. Paris is a book to savor, in whole or in part, at any time and in any season. At age ninety or at thirty-four, you can open any chapter and read from there.

The last we heard of him was a picture postcard from Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast of Mexico, containing a message of two words: "Hello - Goodbye!" and no address.

It's like rock n' roll for your eyes.

...being a weatherman in Ireland is about the biggest scam going.

When we told our guide that we didn't want to go to all the tourist places he took us instead to the places where they take tourists who say that they don't want to go to tourist places. These places are, of course, full of tourists.

The logic underlying the truism that one should always travel on a plane with a book is also precisely why bed-and-breakfast culture is to be avoided if at all possible. Namely, you might have to talk to someone.

It was such ecstacy to dream, and dream - till you got a bite.A scorpion bite. Then the first duty was to get up out of the grass and kill the scorpion; and the next to bathe the bitten place with alcohol or brandy; and the next to resolve to keep out of the grass in the future. Then came an adjournment to the bedchamber and the pastime of writing up the day's journal with one hand and the destruction of mosquitoes with the other - a whole community of them at a slap. Then, observing an enemy approaching - a hairy tarantula on stilts - why not set the spittoon on him? It is done, and the projecting ends of his paws give a luminous idea of the magnitude of his reach. Then to bed and become a promenade for a centipede with forty-two legs on a side and every foot hot enough to burn a whole through a raw-hide. More soaking with alcohol, and a resolution to examine the bed before entering it, in future. Then wait, and suffer, till all the mosquitoes in the neighborhood have crawled in under the bar, then slip out quickly, shut them in and sleep peacefully on the floor till morning. Meantime, it is comforting to curse the tropics in occasional wakeful intervals.

He has a passport," my classmates would whisper. "Quick, let's run before he judges us!