Friday, August 8th, 2008...4:11 am
#s94-100: How Not To Vacation Old, Part 2
Okay, in the last installment, we got you carefully and finally out of the house. Whee! But you still have to make it to your vacation destination without acting old. Let’s go:
1. If you’re flying, do not get to the airport three and a half hours ahead of time. Yes, it takes a while to get through security these days: maybe 17 minutes. Then you’ve still got a whole three hours and 22 minutes to kill, and there are only so many Auntie Anne’s pretzels a person can eat.
2. Do not dress up for the flight. Assuming you’re neither the pilot nor a flight attendant, there is no need to wear a tie, skirt, hat with a shiny visor, shoes more formal than flipflops, or a bra. If you feel sloppy, you can always add epaulets with gold stars to your pajamas.
3. Don’t make friends with the person sitting next to you. Unless it’s ScarJo.
4. If you’re driving, no maps. Definitely no AAA Trip-tiks. GPS and Mapquest should get you there.
5. Do not complain, each and every time you fill up, about how expensive gas has gotten, as if you’re surprised that the price didn’t drop to $1 a gallon in the time it took you to drive 200 miles.
6. No scenic routes. Scenic routes, with their cows and their small towns, their speed traps and their no-passing zones, are old — and they’re often not even that scenic anymore.
7. If you get lost and have to pull into a gas station to ask for directions, don’t keep nodding as if you totally understand and then turn the wrong way right out of the parking lot. Not that you’ve ever done that, honey.
I’m on vacation. I get to be old if I want, take the scenic rout, & turn the wrong way out of the parking lot. I’m not trying to impress some gen-Xer. As Bilbo says, “Not all who wander are lost.” I can always get out the GPS or check my “maps” app if I have to be somewhere. I’m on vacation, I am old and can act my age if I want.