I'm one of those people who float through the world inconspicuously. I try to blend in with the crowd go with the flow, so to speak. If I ate in the same restaurant five days in a row, I'm betting the waitress wouldn't recognize me on the sixth. In a world of exotic spice and vibrant color, I'm vanilla in khaki. Despite my anonymity, I seem to be a magnate for misadventure. OK, occasionally I bring it upon myself, but more often than not it's thrust upon me.

For more than 20 years I've been traveling for business and otherwise. While my experiences might not be all that different from the frequent traveler, I have the distinct feeling that somehow I've been eternally cursed by the travel gods. Lost baggage and cancelled flights aside, traveling is a hassle - even more so since the advent of this post-911 bizarro illusion (or should that be delusion) of enhanced security.

The cookie story from a few issues back was 100% true. Over the years, I've managed to accumulate enough of these experiences to easily fill a book.

Where do I start and what do I leave out? Well I guess I can start at the beginning. My first real business trip turned into an unplanned adventure:

Sir, you'll need to come with us.

It was 1986 and I'm working for a Japanese trading company in New Jersey. Three years in the Northeast and the cold weather was gnawing at me. It was time to move south to Florida. My escape was already planned for a month later. I hadn't given notice yet and was asked to take a trip to the Seattle area and visit dairy suppliers together with a visitor from the home office. In those days, we were exporting a lot of powdered milk products whey protein concentrate and other stuff I hadn't a clue about.

My Japanese colleague spoke no English, which made the trip that much more enjoyable. The trip involved a lot of bowing and pointing. We spent a week looking at cows, looking at milk and looking at the inner workings of factories that honestly reeked so horrifically that I still cringe every time I go past the dairy aisle in the supermarket. Believe me I've been in stinky places before. I've been down wind of a fish drying operation and toured a few slaughter houses not to mention changing a few hundred diapers. This was the kind of smell that hung on your clothes even after two washings and a dry cleaning.

My Japanese friend didn't seem to mind the smell. It was a few years later when I finally had a chance to visit Japan and realized that there were actually

• 1
• 2
• next page >>

---

Add your voice

Know something about Keep your sense of humor when you travel?
We want to hear your view. Write now!