The good thing about traveling is that you get to reconnect with friends and relatives you haven’t seen in some time. The bad thing about traveling is that you get to reconnect with friends and relatives you haven’t seen in some time. The really bad thing is that on top of the angst, you must travel to get to your destination.
I would strongly support any government measures to make beam-travel available. Take my tax money, please. I am serious. Just like on Star Trek. Just think of the possibilities.
For one thing, you wouldn’t have to be screened by the TSA. My daughter was pulled over for additional screening on both the departing and returning trips. The first time, they put her into a little plastic one-way box, where she waited for over ten minutes while I tried to get someone to wand her. She was stuck in her clear coffin. I guess it was shift change and no female wanted to do it. We found out later that her little hair clips set the machine off. On the return trip, she was clipless, but she forgot to put her Visine in a little plastic baggie. Of course, she had the Visine on her on the initial trip out, but that didn’t cause alarm then.
Star travel would also eliminate trying to amuse yourself on long flights. I brought a book, “Saving Fish from Drowning” by Amy Tan. It’s a massive and well written novel by the same person who wrote “Joy Luck Club,” one of my favorite movies of all time. Due to the fact that our plane was an hour late taking off because of mechanical problems, I managed to almost finish the book before arrival. I brought my knitting, using needles made of bamboo not metal, and was told that they were still considered deadly weapons, so I packed them in my luggage. When I opened my luggage, one was snapped in half.
Then there is the phenomenon of car rental. Sometimes you get a good car, sometimes you get a bad one. I’m also a “preferred” member, but managed to get snagged to come into the counter for “additional” information. Now I have a feeling the rental company is going to try to nail me with an additional fee for a little scratch they found on that wonderful KIA Spectra which almost died in a mountain pass. I don’t remember hitting anything, so I pled ignorance.
Then, of course, in the social setting, one must be… well, sociable. In my family, many family get-togethers have ended up in cat fights and all out warfare. About five years ago, I cut off all contact with one of my sisters. I’ve only seen her twice since then, and manage to emit a civil but dispassionate “hello” and “goodbye.” In between, I smile a lot, am reasonably courteous and act stupid.
There’s a certain amount of depression settling in, when you see your brother and sisters and friends and they appear to have aged significantly since the last time you gazed upon their countenances. Why are they so wrinkly? When did he turn grey? I can’t believe that pot belly! Then you stare at yourself in the mirror, looking for wrinkles, grey hair and pot belly, and you notice, without a doubt, that they are there. Hey! I have all those things too! When did THAT happen?
The ability to be beamed to the desired location would eliminate having to spend too much time with family. I love them, but really… I could also forego the luggage, because I would only be in attendance for the party, and would be back in my comfy bed at the end of the celebration.
Finally, your duties finished, you head home to recuperate. Of course, you are bogged down by the fact that we are unable to beam people to far-off places yet, so you have to live through the travel nightmare once again. The only thing is, once you arrive at your home-sweet-home, it’s in a state of total chaos. Things are dirty, not put away. Three days worth of newspapers lie on the porch, and someone (names withheld to protect both the innocent and the guilty) was still home! The laundry is a much bigger pile, the leaves need to be raked some more. Then you realize Thanksgiving is only three days away, and you do not have the provisions for the traditional blow-out dinner.
I’m telling you, star travel would have prevented all of this. Beam me up, Scotty.
Filed under: family, life, ramblings, traveling | Tagged: a mess when you come home, going home, people, rigors of traveling, star travel, traveling |
Pandemonic's Time & Space 
That it would.
I wish I’d thought of this. I didn’t.
My imagination is limited. Once while hanging about and thinking about taking a bus home and dreading the walk to the bus stop (it was minus 30 out), I had a leap of imaginative powers: I wished I could teleport to the bus stop. I wished it out loud. My friend laughed and said, “If you’re gonna wish you can teleport, you should wish to teleport home.”
My husband is not-a-good-traveler. He’s a homebody and has panic attacks whenever he has to do something more than walk or ride his bicycle. Unfortunately, or fortunately, all my “other” family lives farfar away. He says, given that the beam-me-up-Scotty technique is not even in beta version, he would be willing to settle for a general anesthesia.
BGG, of course you should have asked to be beamed home! Silly!
lilalia… General anesthesia should be available. When traveling from west to east on the red eye, I opt for a tylenol PM and sleep the entire way.
You should read The Jaunt by Stephen King.
I like travelling.
Aha! I could have asked to be beamed to your place. Wacky-smacky! That”s what is wrong with my brain. I’ve gone wacky-smacky!
(It’s a technical term usually applied to cellular telephones but it seems can be metaphorically extended so that it applies to my brain).
I remember wishing repeatedly for a transporter during long car trips when my children were young. You know, it would also make family gatherings more bearable, because you could drink a lot, and not have to worry about being the designated driver. You could get drunk, tell your family what you really think, then beam directly to bed to sleep it off. Perfect.
P’mousse, I thought so too. A speedy getaway is a good thing.
Visine? I somehow managed to get through with a lighter this summer, twice. They were too busy confiscating water bottles (and Visine)
A transporter, definitely. I would also like them to get busy on the Jetson’s contraption that you stumble into in the morning and emerge from showered and dressed.
One of my siblings once had Dramamine confiscated on the way to Mexico.
Mind boggling!
I don’t think security liked the clean-up crew for that plane.