Dave Barry's Only Travel Guide You'll Ever Need Read Online Free PDF Page A

were large canvas sacks; a severely airsick passenger would be placed inside, and the bag would then be sealed up and, in an act of aviation mercy, shoved out the cargo door at 12,000 feet. Today’s passenger doesn’t get that kind of personalized service, and must place a small bag over his nose and mouth in hopes of cutting off his oxygen supply.
    Despite these strides forward, there have been a few problems caused by the belt-tightening in the airline industry that has resulted from “deregulation,” a government policy under which the only requirement to purchase an airline is that you have to produce two forms of identification. Even Donald Trump was allowed to purchase an airline, which he immediately named after himself (“Air Jerk”). This led to some dramaticaviation moments when Trump got into financial difficulty and had to sell some of his aircraft
while they were still in the air
. (“This is your captain speaking. We’ve just been advised that instead of Boston, we will be landing in Iran. We regret any incon …”)
    Of course, this kind of adventure only adds to the fun of flying. My family has had many fun flights, including an extremely exciting one in which we went from Miami to Honolulu via the following itinerary, which I am not making up:
    1. We flew from Miami to Denver on a plane that seemed to be working fine, so naturally they made us get off of it and get on
another
plane that was supposed to fly the rest of the way to Honolulu. This happened to be on Halloween. “Never Fly on Halloween,” that is our new aviation motto.
    2. They put a bunch of fuel on our new plane, and we got on it. One of the flight attendants was wearing devil ears, which struck us as hilarious at the time but which we later on realized was an omen. “Never Get on a Flight Where a Crew Member Is Wearing Devil Ears” is another one of our aviation mottoes.
    3. When we got out to the end of the runway, the pilot announced that we had
too much
fuel, which struck us ignorant laypersons as odd, because we were under the impression that having a lot of fuel is
good
, especially when you’re flying over a major ocean such as the Pacific. Nevertheless we went back to the gate and got off theplane while they removed fuel, apparently using eyedroppers, because it took them
two
hours.
    4. We got back on the plane and the pilot announced that—remember, I am not making this up—we were going to fly to Los Angeles to get some
more
fuel. So needless to say …
    5. We landed in San Francisco. There they told us (why not?) that we had to change planes, so we all got off, only to be met by a gate attendant wearing
an entire devil costume
, which was seeming less and less amusing. Also the pilot was not inspiring a great deal of confidence in us. You know how pilots are generally trim, military-looking individuals who remain up in the cockpit looking aloof but competent? Well,
our
pilot was a chunky, slightly disheveled man who looked like a minor character in
Police Academy XIII
. He was walking around the lounge area, chatting with us passengers as though he had nothing else to do, and holding a computer printout the thickness of
War and Peace
, which he announced was our “flight plan,” although we couldn’t help but note that (a) he wasn’t reading it, and (b) pages were falling out of it. Some of us were starting to suspect that he wasn’t a real pilot at all, but merely a man who had dressed up in a realistic pilot costume for Halloween. But we were desperate, so we followed him aboard yet another plane. As we taxied out to the runway, the pilot said—I swear—“Hopefully, this one will fly all the way.”
    6. So we took off from San Francisco, and for a while everything was fine except for the aromacoming from the seat behind us, which was occupied by a wretched woman who was attempting to get to Australia with two very small children, whom she evidently intended to enter in the World Pooping Championships. But this