Twelve things to avoid on vacation

There are literally hundreds of things to avoid on vacation if you include the standard things like dehydration, yoga, and Josh Gad, but I'm keeping this list to twelve. Nobody likes a long list. Except maybe a list of admiral qualities someone has written about you. Everyone likes a compliment.

Apparently ten is the maximum number of things you should have on a list due to TikTok attention spans, but I've already cut the list down from fifteen by removing bats, tight socks, and children selling carved wooden animals.

1. An old couple named Don and Becky who want to be best friends and have over a hundred photos of their grandchildren on their Consumer Cellular flip-phones. Each 12dpi photo will take fifteen seconds to load.

2. Being electrocuted while swimming. You wouldn’t think this was a thing, would you? It is though, 2,830 people were electrocuted while swimming last year. That’s a global number, so it’s a lot less than were killed by falling off a ladder, but it’s still pretty high. Apparently it’s most common around boat docks, especially ones that have lights or those big metal racks that lift the boat out of the water. One issue with the ground wire and anyone swimming nearby is zapped. It’s not a quick zap either, it’s just keeps zapping and you drown while you’re being zapped. It’s like two horrific deaths in one. There’s no way to really test for it either, apart from not being the first in or maybe throwing a bit of bread in and seeing if it sizzles. That might work.

3. Paddle boarding. It’s not relaxing, you can’t drink a beer while doing it, and you look like an idiot. Just sit down. Nobody cares that you have good balance, it’s essentially the same skill as standing on a wobbly stool and nobody’s calling that a sport. The person who invented it, probably someone who wears a lot of Prana, should have been told to stop fucking about and sit down.

“Stop fucking about and sit down. You’ll hurt yourself.”
“No I won’t, I have really good balance.”
“Nobody cares. What’s the point?”
“The point is that I’m standing up. Look at me!”
“You don’t look very stable.”
“I’m not.”
“Or comfortable.”
“No.”
“You’d be better off in a kayak. They have a seat with a lower center of gravity and paddles that have blades on both ends so you can row faster.”
“It’s not about speed. It’s about standing up. I’m going to call it the Stand Up and Paddle Board.”
“So it’s just a water version of your other inventions, the Stand Up and Drive Car and the Stand Up and Sleep Bed?”
“Yes, but I have good feeling about this one.”
“That’s what you said about the Stand Up and Defecate Toilet and the Stand Up and Roll Wheelchair.”

4. Camping. Apparently when women give birth, there’s some kind of chemical released in the brain that blurs the whole event and makes them think pushing a human out of their body wasn’t as horrific as they thought it would be. Camping must release the same kind of chemical. Once you’re home and have had a shower and are in your comfy clothes and watching Netflix, the memory of all the lifting and carrying things fades away. As does the worst sleep you’ve had in years and the whole sitting around a fire staring at each other thing.

Also, camping looks fun in L.L.Bean catalogues and you’ll probably flip through a couple before your next camping trip and think, “I should buy a vest.” I own five vests and have never worn any of them. Whenever I’m looking for a jacket in my wardrobe and I come across a vest, I think, “It’s cold outside so something with sleeves would probably be better.” Plus all my vests are too puffy. .

5. Cruise ships. Remember that time everyone on a cruise ship got sick and they wouldn’t let anyone off for three weeks? People had to eat rats to survive. My parents went on a cruise once and my mother caught Legionnaires disease from a contaminated spa filter. She had to spend three weeks in hospital so my father sent my sister and I to stay with our Auntie Phyllis. We had to sand and stain her floorboards.

Also, don’t expect the onboard entertainment to be anyone you’ve ever heard of. It will be an old guy named Andrew who knows four magic tricks.

6. Fire pits. It doesn’t matter if there’s nobody else sitting at the fire pit, if you sit down, other people will show up. When they do, you can’t just get up and leave, you have to wait it out a bit so it doesn’t look like you’re only leaving because they sat down. Once, when my partner Holly and I were on vacation, a guy with a guitar sat down next to us and started playing Wonder Wall. I asked him to leave and he said, “You don’t own the firepit.” 7. Becoming a drug mule. I’ve never actually done this but I saw a television show once where a guy got caught with drugs in his bum and was sentenced to ten years in a Turkish prison. He had to share a room and a poo bucket with about thirty other guys. There’s no way I could poo in a bucket with thirty guys watching. I’d just hold it in until I died. 8. Being abducted while backpacking across Europe and having your mouth sewed to someone’s rectum. Actually, being abducted whatever the outcome wouldn’t be good. Unless you were abducted by an old couple who just want you to set up their smart TV and give you a bag of money for your trouble. Or by kind aliens who give you a watch that can stop time.

I’m writing this at work and just asked my coworker Ben what his ‘best case abduction scenario’ would be, and he answered, “Duct tape pre-cut to thirty-inch strips, eight of them,” so I think he misinterpreted the question. Gary, our account rep, stated he’d like to be abducted by another company where people don’t ask stupid questions.

9. England. Everyone’s miserable and damp. Also, there’s nothing to eat. English people just eat the same three meals their entire lives. It’s like all exploration of taste and texture ceased once they discovered mashed potatoes. 10. Staying with friends or relatives. It doesn’t work out cheaper because you’ll have to take them out to dinner to thank them for letting you stay at their house and the bill will be $457.80. Also, they’re going to cook at least twice and you’ll have to eat the food even if their kitchen cleaning habits are questionable and they own cats that are allowed to jump up on the counter. Plus you’ll run out of things to talk about by 7pm but they’ll make you sit around their fire pit listening to Bruce Springsteen until 10pm. 11. Hiking. It's just walking. 12. Philadelphia. Most cities have their good and bad points, but there’s no point to Philadelphia. From its corrugated roads to its unbearable residents, the entire city is a dump. The only good thing to ever come out of Philadelphia is the cream cheese.

No, wait, I just Googled Philadelphia Cream Cheese and it isn’t from Philadelphia; it was invented in New York in 1872 and got its name as part of a marketing strategy to associate the product with dairy farming - for which Philadelphia was known at the time. Philadelphia isn’t known for dairy farming anymore; it’s known for meat with cheese on it. How is that a thing? Anyone can stick cheese on meat. Burgers have cheese on them. What else does Philadelphia have to offer? A cracked bell? Who gives a fuck.