It is the Summer time! If you’re still school-aged, Summer is a valuble couple of months for you to not suffer the indignities of homework and testing and studying and shooting sprees. If you’re a working man (or housewife) Summer is the perfect time for you to take a vacation and get away from the hassles of the daily grind.

Either way, there’s nothing better to do with your time off than travel the world (In this case, that world is Earth). The world is a big place, filled with all kinds of fun tourist destinations. I’ve seen enough of these tourist destinations to be considered a travel expert. And being a kind and benevolent travel expert, I thought I might offer some advice, to help you avoid the stress that amateur travellers can encounter.

Here they are, in no particular order:

Tip One: Do Some Research

It’s just common sense. If you’re going someplace, familiarize yourself with it. And not only so you know what you’re doing, but also to not look like an ignorant bastard to the locals. Locals are very mean. If you appear stupid they’ll rob you. They’ll swindle you. They’ll play mean tricks on you. They’ll grab you and punch you and hit you until you fall down and then they’ll just laugh and one will run up and say how wrong it is for them to pick on you and he’ll help you to your feet, but then he’ll knock you back down and kick you because he was only pretending to be nice to the dumb visitor and he really hates you just as much as the rest of them. They’ll also murder you.

But I digress… I was saying, before you go somewhere, it is a good idea to learn a thing or two about the place. For Example, if you go to Venice, here are some tips that you should know:

• Venice is in Italy, which means that everyone there has ties to organized crime (Venice is occasionally referred to as “the City that Sleeps with the Fishes”). Italy is in Europe, which means that everyone there eats snails.
• Venice was founded by Vikings in the year 1245. The Vikings had been looking for a place to keep their spare Venus De Milo statues. “Venice” is Vikingese for Venus.
• Mermaids evolved from the people in Venice in 1369, not long after the streets of Venice were first flooded with water.
• All that water is pumped in from poor African countries because Venice needs the water to keep the tourists coming and the poor African countries need to be rid of the water or else they’d actually have water, which would upset the world’s deilicate economy.
• Julius Ceasar played a concert in Venice on his “Et Tu, Brute” Tour in 1777. He was booed off the stage during his perfromance of “Veni, Vidi, Vicci”.

Tip Two: Don’t Drink the Water

Water in most tourist destinations is cursed. If you drink it, it will do bad things to your bowels. This is because tourist destinations are always less developed than our own homelands. We choose to go to less developed “quaint” places so that we can “get away from it all”. Unfortunately, “it all” includes sanitation and bacteria free water.

“But how can I avoid drinking water?” you ask. “Get Milk!” I reply.

Milk is a liquid refreshment that comes from cows and other less appetizing animals. In foreign countries it can be procured by a process referred to as “Purchasing Goods”. This entails going to a “store” and giving currency to the owner of the milk. This ancient ritual causes the ownership of the milk to be passed on to you. After that, it is yours to drink. You now have a handy bacteria-free refreshment and your bowels will rejoice.

If, however you are lactose intolerant… Happy Cramping.

Tip Three: Bring Your Own Sandwiches

Sandwiches are important. Equally as important as refreshments.

There is almost no vacation crisis that can not be solved, or even averted altogether, by a decent supply of sandwiches. If you are hungry, you can eat them. Need money? You can sell them. No place to stay? Build a fort out of them. Kidnapped by terrorists and being held hostage? Use the sandwiches to choke the terrorists. Many a good man has choked on a sandwich, so choking terrorists will be useful in restoring the rightful sandwich choking balance.

Actually, that may be the most important lesson right there. I’m going to change rule three:

Tip Three: Bring Sandwiches and Use Them to Choke Terrorists

Now, I realize that it won’t always be easy to find yourself in a situation in which you will get the chance to choke terrorists with your sandwiches, but I have faith in you the tourists.

It is as Shakespeare once wrote:

Never would a man, of his own will
Feel the need to kill a robot
‘Til the robot had begun to kill the man

Tip Four: Don’t be American

No matter what destination you have in mind, you need to remember not to be American. Americans are really, really disliked by many people in tourist destinations. Whatever you do, don’t be American.

Even if you’re from Texas, don’t be American.

and finally, Tip Five: I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go…

I mean really, I’ve never even been out of Maritime Canada. The longest I’ve been away from the Halifax Regional Municipality is a week or two spent in New Brunswick. Seriously, if you’re making a list of all the people on the planet who you ask for advice on travelling, I’d like to be on it, but you’d have to be stupid to take any of my advice.

If you really need a fifth tip, uh… I don’t know… Let’s see… WWJD?…

I guess:

Tip Five: Bring a copy of the Sanford and Son DVDs to watch if it rains.

 

Have a good Summer.
Patrick D Ryall, the D is for Automatic
originall posted on Contains2 Sunday 20 July 2003

Comments from Contains2:

1. And Son
July 21st, 2003 at 1:24 am

Those DVDs are crap! They wouldn’t even let me do the commentary for a single episode! They said “And Son, you just a baby, why you tryin’ to talk about stuff!” I’ll show them! Me and Jimmy Walker are gonna blow the superfluous pants off their shoulders with all the C-4 that Jimmy stole from Mister T. and other great TV icons.