I’m putting together a European trip for a newly-retired couple going on their first trip in a while.

Me: “Okay, so let’s talk hotels.”

Caller: “Yes, we were on YouTube, and we liked the look of the Incontinence.”

Me: “The… Incon… what now?”

Caller: “The Incontinence. Is that how you say it? We’re not good with languages. Is it pronounced In-con-tineau or something?”

Me: “Did you mean the Intercontinental?”

Caller: “Now that you mention it, that sounds better than what I said.”

Anything would have been better than what he said!

Still, it’s not as bad as that guy who called, who wanted to stay in The White Lotus and “specifically that room with the pool where all those women banged”.

I’m at a small regional airport. I’m in line to check in for the flight. The airline only has one check-in desk, so the few passengers in line are all being served one at a time. 

The passenger in front of me is whispering over and over:

Passenger: “Thank you, I will. Thank you, I will. Thank you, I will. Thank you, I will.”

They get called up to check in. Everything seems to go smoothly, and as the passenger starts to walk away with his boarding pass:

Check In Operator: “Have a good flight!”

Passenger: “Thank you, you too!”

Pause.

Passenger: “F***.”

I’m serving at a busy Chinese restaurant in London, England. I was born in Sydney, but my parents are from Guangzhou, but my accent’s more Bondi than Beijing.

A middle-aged couple sits down at my table.

Customer #1: “Your English is so good!”

Me: *Smiling.* “Thanks. I’m from Australia.”

Customer #2: “Wait… Australia? But this is a Chinese restaurant.”

Me: “Right you are.”

Customer #1: “So… you’re Chinese but you’re from Australia?”

Me: “Yep.”

Customer #2: “Wow! That’s amazing. Do you… also speak German?”

Me: “Uh, no, sorry. I only speak English and Cantonese.”

Customer #1: “Oh, I just thought since you’re from, you know, over there, you might.”

Me: “Australia?”

Customer #1: “Yeah! Germany’s near there, right?”

Me: “Sir, are you thinking of Austria?”

Customer #1: “Isn’t that what you said?”

Me: “I said Australia.”

Customer #1: “Look, man, I’m from the States. Everything north is Canada, everything south is Mexico, everything east is ‘The West’, and everything west is ‘The East.’ You should be lucky I knew Austria was closer to Germany than… than the other one.”

Me: “Australia?”

Customer #1: “Yeah, that one!”

Me: “Well, in that case, welcome to ‘The West’. Can I recommend some of the best food from ‘The East’ for you?”

They were great customers, and like most Americans, they tipped well (not very common in the UK), although to this day I couldn’t tell if he was pulling my leg or not…

I’m sitting in the bulkhead seat (first row, extra legroom) in first class, trying to relax before take-off. I fly frequently for work, and I’m almost always upgraded, so I’m enjoying the privilege. Behind me, I can feel a pair of feet tapping against mine. At first, I thought it was an accident. Then it happens again. And again. 

I glance down: long legs. Whoever’s behind me is playing full-contact footsie through the bulkhead bar. After a few minutes of this, I turn around. The guy behind me isn’t just tall, he’s taaaaallll. Even in these spaced-out first-class seats, his feet come so far forward that they are capable of overlapping with mine.

Me: “Hey, would you like this seat instead? You seem cramped.”

Tall Man: *Scowling.* “No. I want the seat I paid for.”

He starts muttering under his breath, getting redder.

Tall Man: “You’re kicking me.”

Me: “I’m… sitting still.”

I don’t want trouble, so I try to compromise.

Me: “I can keep my feet on the left side if that helps.”

Tall Man: *Gritting his teeth.* “That’s my space! I paid for that space! I’m allowed to put my feet there!”

Now he’s aggressively pushing at my shoes with his! A flight attendant walks into the nearby galley and starts preparing food.

Tall Man: *Loudly, to the flight attendant.* “She’s doing it on purpose!”

The flight attendant looks up from the galley. She sees my feet are both tucked politely against the wall, and comes over.

Flight Attendant: “Is there a problem here?”

Me: “I can move to the back if that’s easier.”

Tall Man: *Outraged.* “She’s kicking me! I paid for that space!”

The flight attendant puts a hand on her hip, looks him dead in the eye, and without missing a beat, in a practised tone that comes from years of talking to grown adults who behave like children:

Flight Attendant: “Sir, that is where her feet go. There is no other place for her feet to go. She is permitted to place her feet on the floor. You may use the space below your seat, but not the space in front of the seat in front of you. That is her space.”

It’s all matter-of-fact, crisp, and devastating. The tall man freezes; that is not the answer he was expecting.

Flight Attendant: *To me.* “And no, ma’am, you’re not moving.”

She gives me a quick nod and walks back to the galley. The tall man stays quiet for the rest of the flight, though every so often, I still feel a tiny, passive-aggressive kick against my heel.

I posted this story. And because good things always come in threes, and bad things always come in twos, it’s time for the story of the second time my family went to Las Vegas.

This time, at least, I was over twenty-one, but the group was larger: I brought my girlfriend, my brother brought his girlfriend, my other brother brought his wife, and my sister brought her boyfriend. So, in addition to the six people in the family already, we had four more people for a total of ten. And the one thing that we could all agree on was “how cool would it be to see the Grand Canyon?” So we decided to organize a trip to the Grand Canyon for all of us, but due to conflicting schedules, my oldest brother and his wife could not make it.

They were the lucky ones.

To keep costs down, we took redeye flights into Vegas. By the time we checked into our hotel and got to our rooms, it was 2 AM. In our infinite wisdom, we determined that we would go to the Grand Canyon on the first day of the trip. Get it out of the way, you know?

The bus picked us up at 5 AM to take us to the gathering point. That’s three hours of sleep.

We milled around the bus terminal for about an hour (thankfully, there was free coffee and donuts), mostly still feeling like we needed another ten hours of sleep. But the bus eventually picked us up and we climbed on board. The trip would take us over the Hoover Dam in about an hour, and we would stop there to do the tourist thing for about an hour before continuing on. Total travel time to the Grand Canyon: about five hours. Excellent, an opportunity to sleep.

Quoth the bus driver: “No one sleeps on my bus. If you sleep on my bus, I sleep on my bus, and that’s bad for all of us.”

And if you’re wondering, yes, he DID call people out when he saw them nodding off.

The Hoover Dam was pretty spectacular, but we were all feeling the exhaustion already. Surely it would be worth it: the Grand Canyon is one of the natural wonders of the world!

By the time we got there, we were all exhausted beyond reason, to the point that I got the Call of the Void looking at the Grand Canyon. It was truly amazing, breathtaking, and scary. It was now about 3 PM. I think. It’s a little fuzzy on the memory.

We were at the Grand Canyon for about ninety minutes (I think), and then we clambered back on the bus, where the no-sleeping rule from the bus driver was less strictly enforced, but still enforced if he saw too many people asleep. We figured, no problem, we’d be back to our hotel by about 8 or 9 PM, and we could sleep.

As the sun fell below the mesas of Arizona and the world grew dark, we realized that was optimistic.

I still don’t know the route we took to the Grand Canyon. I don’t know how we got there, how we got back, what took so long, or how time seemed to stretch and contract at the same time to make everything a nightmarishly torturous experience.

What I do know is that we got back to Vegas around 11 PM.

By this point, my brother and his girlfriend were sitting far away from each other, evidently to avoid getting upset at each other. My sister was curled into a tiny ball – legs up against her chest, arms around her legs, head down – and her boyfriend was across the aisle from her. I found out later that she was so tired and angry that she was trying really, really hard not to lash out physically (she is not a violent person, but she was pushed well beyond her limit). My parents? Passed out. I was still struggling along, and my girlfriend was asleep on my shoulder. Surely, surely, we were almost there.

The bus driver dropped everyone off in order, from one side of the Vegas Strip to the other. And it was our (un)lucky day: we were the last to be dropped off.

We finally managed to get off the bus and into the hotel at midnight. No one said anything. We just went to our rooms and passed out.

We STILL tell this story twenty years later, not because it’s a fun memory, but because it’s an example of how something so wondrous can be surrounded by absolute Hell. And it’s kind of funny.

And the kicker? The reason that my sister was ready to absolutely destroy someone? Around 9 PM, another passenger on the bus asked the driver if there was an advantage to going to the part of the Grand Canyon we had to, the long trip.

“If you’ve never been there before,” he said, “not really. The shorter trip or the longer one will get you an amazing view either way. I recommend the shorter trip to new people. It’s only about five or six hours.”