Travelling with your wife is a bit like downing shots of tequila. If you can ignore the sharp, bitter taste of prickly cactus, it will eventually make you feel all warm and mushy inside.
In order to possibly circumvent the illicit and mysterious severing of your bungee cord just prior to the big jump because you flirted outrageously with the curvaceous waitress at the hotel restaurant the previous night, let me direct you to Ten Travel Commandments which could possibly save your life...
1. Thou shalt not flirt with exotic, foreign waitresses. This includes raving on to the hot flight attendant about how brave and daredevilly you were at bungee jumping the previous day when you assume your wife/girlfriend is asleep in the plane seat beside you. Just because she’s wearing an eye mask and snoring louder than a Boeing 707 taking off doesn’t mean she’s asleep. She’s not asleep. She’s like a crocodile, sunning itself on a log watching you surreptitiously with a nictitating membrane (third eyelid).
2. Unless thou art some mutant genetic anomaly who is willing to sacrifice his masculinity and ask for directions, thou shalt have a GPS installed on your phone. We know you want to solve the puzzle yourself and emerge victorious from the bowels of the Paris Metro thrusting your man bag above your head and screaming triumphantly like a Manchester United fan after they just knocked Barcelona out of the series, but it’s silly. All that your spouse desires is to get to where she’s going in the speediest way possible. You’re not exactly Marco Polo are you? However, you could end up like Burke and Wills.
3. Thou shalt not be selfish. Dost thou really need to pack two pairs of shoes? You’ll only be away for a few weeks; surely you can make do with the pair on your feet? Your spouse will need the extra room in your suitcase for her extra luggage and it would be wise to curry favour by offering it before she asks. And don’t dare to be foolish enough to ask if she can squeeze your toothbrush in her toiletry bag. That’s tantamount to asking for one more, filthy, bacteria-ridden person to be squeezed on to the last lifeboat leaving the Titanic.
4. On the subject of packing, thou should make sure to pack an adequate amount of underwear, and by adequate I mean more than adequate. The old, ‘inside out, back to front’ method of saving on washing won’t cut it now that you’re not backpacking around Vietnam with six of your grubby, Neanderthal mates. Don’t expect her to be washing the skid marks out for you in the hotel hand basin either. Just put them in a plastic bag and discretely bury them at the bottom of a bin on your way out in the morning.
5. Don’t attempt to channel ‘Jerry Seinfeld’ when thou gets the persuasive signal to come over for explosives/drug screening at airport security. Your clever quips emulating Seinfeld, like, “What? I look like a terrorist because I have a hipster beard?” will merely bring down the wrath of God and his heavily armed henchmen and won’t impress your partner when your flight is delayed because the Federal Police are mining your coal reserves.
6. Okay. Thou may get on the plane and thou and thy partner may have the choice of aisle versus centre seat. Dost thou really needst the aisle seat for extra leg room when thou knowst very well thy partner has a bladder the size of a small nut? Who art thou? Michael Jordan? Shaquille O’Neill? Or art thou not closer to George Costanza? Give her the damn aisle seat, thou!
7. Learn thou, the language and currency of the country thou art travelling to a little bit, so thou art able to haggle. But don’t be a cheap skate in third world countries and argue with a taxi driver because he’s charging you ten dollars for a fifty kilometre trip instead of five dollars. These people need every cent they can get from thy fat Western butt. Benevolence and empathy will win you points with your lady love. Besides, she doesn’t want to be left on the side of the road in the red light district of downtown Saigon because you were a tight ass.
8. Don’t let thyself be a dick. When you go somewhere romantic, like Rome, don’t stand there with your hands on your muffin top, sniff in a superior manner and declare, “Well, I can see they built this in a day.” Don’t climb to the lofty heights of the fabulous Eiffel Tower in Paris and say, “Looks like the scaffolding for a television tower to me.” Keep the romance alive and blossoming, not dead like a clouted mullet in the bottom of your tinny.
9. Thou shalt not force thy tedious passions on thy wife. If you desperately want to go to the Museum of Advanced Star Trek Mythological Creatures or an exhibition on The Journey of the Development of Graphical Interface Architecture and your spouse stifles a yawn, pops a Prozac and begins to snore with her eyes open, it’s probably best to let her go do what she wants to do instead.
10. Thou shalt try to savour the moment in each experience. Go to a restaurant in Rome and slurp up the same spaghetti noodle until your lips meet in a Bolognese sauce bloodbath. Go to the top of the Eiffel Tower and recite your marriage vows then release some helium balloons before security handcuffs you for littering and unruly behaviour, go to Mexico City and get drunk on Tequila shots for heaven’s sake.
* This travel advice was largely sourced from the Old Testament, Disney movies, “Lady and the Tramp”, “The Aristocats” and the lesser known Disney movie “Herbie Goes to Tijuana”.
Have a safe trip!
