Not Exactly What I Had in Mind Read Online Free PDF

unzipping and repacking. Before you know it, your white shirt has stuck to the heel of a hurried traveler, and he is dragging it off toward the Green Concourse, and people are sneering at your wardrobe, and you discover that your athlete’s-foot powder has come open and coated everything in your Dopp kit, including notably your toothbrush, and your deodorant stick is rolling off toward the newsstand. And — oh-h, surprise! — there is the cat.
    You can deal with all this, though. You are a seasoned traveler. And you are on the first leg of your trip. Your bag hasn’t split open yet and its handle hasn’t come loose at one end yet and its main zipper hasn’t jammed yet and shirts that you spilled beer on haven’t gotten mingled in with the other shirts yet and you haven’t acquired any keepsakes yet.
    Keepsakes can be a problem. In the course of your travels, you will pick up gifts for loved ones back home — hats, conch shells, wooden airplanes that do loops if they aren’t broken. And if you pass through Tennessee or Georgia, you will want to pick up a couple of bottles of Lem Modow whiskey, which is a younger, cheaper, and I be damned if not better-tasting version of Jack Daniel’s and is available in only those two states. If you get down into south Georgia during May or June, you’ll want to get some Vidalia onions. If you’re in New Orleans, you had better grab a couple of Dixie beers to take back with you; in Milwaukee you may score a wurst; and you might come by a comical alligator poster in Tampa and a cactus in Tucson. Let’s face it, you can’t get these things at home.
    You won’t be able to get every one of these things into your carry-on bag. So you’ll acquire several auxiliary tote bags and will begin to resemble the baseball pitcher Satchel Paige at the age of seven, when he got his nickname hustling baggage at a railroad depot in Mobile. “I rigged up ropes around my shoulders and waist,” Paige once said, “and I carried a satchel in each hand and one under each arm. I carried so many satchels that all you could see were satchels. You couldn’t see no Leroy Paige.”
    By then your baggage will have acquired its own momentum, and you won’t be able to exert much influence over it; so you can relax, and remember these pointers:
When in a hurry to check out of a hotel, just pack everything that will fit into your bag or bags, and wear what’s left over. If three shoes are left over, leave one as a tip.
If your bag has a waterproof compartment for wet things, that is a good place to stow anything that doesn’t have spaghetti sauce on it yet.
If, when you shove your carry-on bag under the seat in front of you, the passenger in that seat jumps straight up into the air, this may be a sign that you will have some trouble getting the bag out again. Politely introduce yourself to the passenger in question, and ask if he or she would mind your pressing downward on his or her head and shoulders in order to flatten out any bag protuberances.
Don’t let your cat wear anything identifying him as your cat. He will be perfectly okay hanging around your hometown airport, with all the other inadvertently packed cats, until you get back. If your name is on him, however, you may be required to repack him and take him with you wherever you go. And many airlines do not allow bags containing cats to be stowed in overhead compartments.
Should you wind up with someone else’s bag by mistake, take the following quiz:
I am traveling to
Palm Springs
Tokyo
Worcester
I have been on the road
one day
two days
two weeks
I am a
cocaine dealer
chief executive officer
serious writer
I am taking this quiz with a
gold pen
gold pencil
ballpoint that says PEEGEE’S PARTS, spokane
I am traveling from
Acapulco
Palm Beach
Amarillo
    If the answers are c, c, c, c, and c, and you want to get ahead in the Reagan era, keep the other person’s bag.

If Sheepskin, So Can You
(Some Friendly Remarks to Graduates)
    I KNOW YOU YOUNG