Because I missed two Fridays...

Yeah, I'm back. And I have to say I am SO done with the trip-within-a-trip format (go visit family and then have to go somewhere else in the middle of the visit).

In 2005, it was getting suckered into accompanying my parents to Door County for a meeting with one of my dad's old grad-school buddies, but also something like 10 hours straight in a car each day.

In 2006, it was going almost as far to see one of my cousins get married. Don't get me wrong - I love my cousin - but spending approximately 20 hours in a car over a span of 3 days is NOT fun. My next cousin from that family who marries? I'll send a really, really nice gift with my regrets.

And this year - it was meetings.

And I have a few little eff offs related to the meetings and travel and stuff in general. And because I've been gone two Fridays, I'm going to let loose right now:

1. The slimy guy who was hanging out by the train station, who made me and my traveling companion think he was with the taxi company - and then who hustled us for $5 ("Normally when there are two people, they give me $5") for "getting" us a cab that was just sitting there, and insisting on putting our bags in the trunk - eff off. If we hadn't been tired and trying to figure out whether to walk to our hotel or take a cab, we would have heartily told you where to go when you first grabbed our suitcases.

2. The taxi companies that jack up the price going OUT from train, bus stations and airports because they know they have a captive audience - eff off. We paid $8 going out and I paid $5 coming back (They levy a $1 "extra person" fee, but still - the taxi out was $2 more than the one coming back). Yeah, yeah, $8 won't break me but it's the PRINCIPLE of the thing.

3. Oh, and while I'm on the subject of taxis - please have some kind of TEST to see that your drivers can actually speak English. Thanks. It's highly unlikely that the passengers are going to speak Arabic or Eritrean or whatever the native language of the cabbies is - so you need to make sure they speak OUR native language, which, incidentally, is the native (if not "official") language of the country in which they are operating.

4. Panhandlers can eff off. At least the ones I encountered weren't too aggressive - but seeing one every block is not a good advertisement for the city.

5. People who are umbilically connected to their cell phones can eff off. On a day off from the meetings, I went to a museum - and what did I encounter, but boors blocking some of the exhibits I wanted to see as they nattered on endlessly about what sounded like (because I couldn't AVOID hearing them) nothing. It's a feckin' MUSEUM. You elected to go there. If you can't disconnect from your absent friends for two hours to go through a MUSEUM, you have serious issues.

6. Crowds can eff off. I am so not a city person. I hate crowds.

7. The poo-smelling river that ran right through the area where I was staying can eff off. Or the people who used it as a sewer for many years and made it smell like poo can eff off, I don't know which. I just don't like strolling around on a summer day looking for a place to eat lunch and smelling eau de outhouse.

8. The very loud, very obnoxious women who were attending a different conference (one for people involved with a home-based business that sells items through a party format) can eff off. Can you PLEASE stop your loud networking, even on the train, and allow those of us who want to read a little privacy from your screeching harpy-voices? (And why do so many of the women who run those "come to a party where I try to sell you stuff" businesses seem like faded, aged versions of the worst stereotypes of cheerleaders and sorority girls?)

9. Expensive restaurants can eff off. Look, if I'm paying $35 for an effing STEAK, I expect that steak to at least come with potatoes...but noooooo, potatoes are $3 extra if you want them. And salad is $4 extra. Damn. I can buy, like, 10 pounds of potatoes for $3. And if I'm paying $9.50 for chicken fingers, they damn well better be actual pieces of chicken breast that the chef breaded and fried right there in the kitchen, not some nasty frozen Tyson crap, which is what I was served. Oh, and "no substitutes"? If mashed potatoes cost exactly the same as french fries, then why can you not substitute? How hard is it? Where I live, and where my parents live, it's harder and more expensive to truck in most food, but in our GOOD restaurants food is reasonably priced and it's GOOD - not nasty frozen crap. I know you have "overhead" but $35 for a steak with JUST a side of yellow summer squash (and, I'm sorry - but the only vegetable I hate worse than summer squash is Brussels sprouts. And I think I'm not alone in that assessment) is just frickin' crazy.

10. And finally - people who cannot form a reasonable line, who can't wait patiently, who cut in front of people who HAVE been waiting patiently, can eff off. In a just world, not only would you get sent to the back of the line but you'd be asked to walk behind the train instead of riding it. Especially the people who cut in front of the older couple who were using canes! That's just wrong.

All that said: I am always grateful for my nice little house, and my own kitchen, and my own bed, and a shower that I know doesn't have a chance of harboring verruca-virus or athlete's foot when I return from trips. Travel, for me, mainly has the purpose of making me appreciate what I have at home.