Prepare for your vacation, and enjoy your flight

Prepare for your vacation, and enjoy your flight

By E. Effendi

BANDUNG, West Java (JP): We are now getting closer and closer
to December, the month that is known as the holiday season, the
month when people begin preparing their New Year's resolutions,
and the month when you spend more money than usual to make all
your family and your friends, but not yourself, happy, especially
when you receive your credit card bills.

This is also the time to plan your year-end vacation,
including finding any excuse to leave your children at your
parents' houses while you and your wife spend a nice holiday
together. No, wait, I was being ridiculous, of course you have to
leave your wife there too.

To plan your vacation, first you have to decide what kind of
vacation that you want to have. According to the Association of
Tour Leaders Who Get Paid For Traveling Everyday While You're
Stuck At Your Office Cubicle, there are two types of vacations.
The first one is when your objective is to experience and see
other places, like visiting Bali, Singapore, or Zimbabwe.

The second type is when you want to have a dangerous and
adventurous trip, like bungee jumping, snorkeling with sharks or
shopping with your wife.

Deciding what kind of vacation you want and the place that you
want to visit can be the most important part of your whole
vacation, and you have to consider it very carefully, unless you
want your trip to be like the movie The Haunting, which stars
many of Hollywood's leading movie stars, such as Catherine Zeta-
Jones, Catherine Zeta-Jones' breasts and Catherine Zeta-Jones'
butt. In the movie, a doctor (played by a male Catherine Zeta-
Jones) invited a group of people to spend their days in a
beautiful mansion.

Days that were supposed to be a beautiful time were ruined
when those people were disturbed by a ghost who was mad because
he could not see Catherine Zeta-Jones naked in the whole movie.
Although, in the end, they finally could eliminate the ghost by
throwing Lily Taylor at him, the whole group was terrified
because what they thought to be a beautiful, quiet and happy time
turned out to be a scary adventure which caused the death of a
man who, coincidentally, was the only star in the movie whose
name we had never heard of before.

I know that this example is unlikely to happen to you, unless
you are Catherine Zeta-Jones. But my point is that if you don't
prepare your vacation really well, then there will be very little
chance that you can see Catherine Zeta-Jones naked. No, that is
not what I mean.

What I mean is, deciding your kind of vacation can make your
whole trip easy; like if you are planning to spend your vacation
in a haunted house, then you should not worry too much about sun
block.

I realize that deciding your kind of vacation can be quite
complicated. That is why I give you this piece of advice: Drink a
lot of beer and sign every travel package that is offered to you.

Trust me, considering the number of travel packages available
today, that is the easiest way. You should also think about the
transportation. The most popular one, if you want to go abroad,
is the airplane. So let me ask you this question: This holiday,
why not take an airplane flight to anywhere you want to go?

Because you are insane, that is why. Air travel has become
less and less pleasant whereas more and more passengers are
getting tired of delayed schedules. Of course, there may be
exceptions, like Korean Airlines, which has kindly opted to take
out some advertising space in this publication to show how it is
different from the rest of the cattle carriers.

Airlines always make sure that you arrive at the airport
approximately three days before takeoff time. During that period,
you have to wait for the check-in counter to open, in a hall
where you all you can do is watch what everybody else does while
they are waiting. Needless to say, that what everybody else is
doing is watching you back.

After you are bored to death waiting, finally you are allowed
to check in. Feeling relieved, you are now moved to a smaller
room, where you can do what everybody else is doing in that room:
waiting some more.

Then you are moved again, to yet another smaller room, with
smaller aisles and smaller seats, so small that you have to leave
some of your body organs outside. After some more waiting, you
begin to realize that the room is actually the airplane cabin.

You can see the cabin crew and the pilot standing at the door
and smiling at every passenger. It is advisable that you smile
back at them, considering the fact that the crew is allowed to
bang the food trolleys into your chair every time you almost fall
asleep, and the pilot has every right to fly the plane at a tall
building, while all you can do is steal their fake silverware.

The cabin crew -- who have trained for months to do things
that normal people (the passengers) cannot do, such as speak
French with lips smiling -- are responsible for serving you, the
passengers, all the way, from the moment you get in, to the
moment they finish serving you airline food.

After that, you will have a hard time finding any of the cabin
crew, who, I suspect, have jumped out the plane using parachutes.

The food served on your flight is usually divided into three
categories: beef, chicken and fish, which all have different
kinds of desserts but, confusingly, have the same nonmeat taste.
I want to give you some advice on what to choose when the cabin
crew offers you the food: mumble. It is no use thinking about
what you feel you want to have.

You won't be able to taste the difference anyway. It is
crucial that when the cabin crew asks you to pick your food, you
mumble right away and eat whatever she thinks you said. Thinking
too long, however, may cause you to eat food that is not
completely dead, especially when you are in a Japanese airplane.

While on board, you can watch the in-flight movie, read the
in-flight magazines or get stuck in the in-flight bathroom
because it is designed only for the use of Barbie dolls. But
don't worry, after four weeks in the plane, you will finally
reach your destination.

And, believe me, when you get out of the plane, and place your
feet on land that you have never visited before, you and all the
other passengers will be sharing the feeling of something new,
the feeling of not feeling your legs and butt.

I have run out room here, so I want to wish you the best of
luck in your travel arrangements.

And let me give a last piece of advice: Remember to tell your
family that if they do not hear from you in more than a week,
tell them to check the in-flight bathroom.