In my infinite wisdom I thought it would be a grand idea to plan a trip abroad.
Thought being the key word here.
My wife had never left the country (beyond cruising to the Caribbean and a trip to Alaska…which let’s be honest…is the equivalent of leaving the U.S.).
So where to start?
A DNA test of course. I told her I needed to know my ancestry before I plunged into a country blindly. So I bought a saliva kit from Ancestry.com and made my mark. (Still waiting on the test results. Can you believe it? When they say 6-8 weeks, they MEAN it!)
Then, I started talking to Leah about her ancestry – Slovenian. (Hey. At least she knows where her bloodline starts.) And I started jonesing about traveling first to her motherland and seeing relatives she didn’t know, before going to mine.
She smiled at the notion, and I admit, I wanted to travel all the more. [Even though I couldn’t tell you a single city located in Slovenia, but I think one starts with a Lub-something…]
Next, I started having dream sequences. Dreaming of Scottish castles and Edinburgh in the winter. Shakespeare plays and moors and moats. All of which sounded nice, even if I wasn’t the least bit Scottish.
Then, I looked at airfare. Yikes! Have you looked at airfare prices to Europe recently? Why don’t they call it airunfair or airrest (see what I did there?)?
But, last night is where I’d like to place the STOP sign of my dumbest moment, when I decided to rent a movie called No Escape from Redbox and subject my lovely wife to what ensued. Have you seen it? No one I know of has either…
Owen Wilson (yes, the man of Zoolander fame) and an actress I didn’t recognize travel to Thailand (or, Cambodia…I’m still not sure which) with their two daughters to relocate as a result of daddy’s new job. Upon arriving, Wilson’s character goes to get a newspaper and stumbles upon an angry mob in the midst of a coup. Wilson and company fight the next two hours against violence waged toward their American/British companies (yes, Pierce Brosnan shows up). The filmmakers love to pander to James Bond fanatics!
But as you can guess, this subject matter did nothing to embrace the notion that Leah and I should travel abroad. The movie featured assassinations and cruel depictions of assault. At one point Wilson’s daughter has to hold a gun against her father and is encouraged to pull the trigger.
Suffice it to say, I didn’t win any brownie points in a.) picking this winner & b.) (and most importantly) encouraging the Tucker family to travel abroad in 2017 or any year
