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A weekly ode to the joys of moaning about your holiday, by Tim Roxborogh.
It's debatable if it's a true travel bug if it gives Planet Earth so much joy, but let's run with it: ridiculous signs. If you've done any travel in a country where English is not the primary language, you will have experienced the phenomenon of the sign that makes substantially less sense than it thinks. Sometimes the grammar is wrong, sometimes it's the spelling but just as good is when the grammar and spelling are fine but the message and tone have been lost a little in translation.
My favourites are generally the slightly aggressive ones telling you what you can and cannot do. I remember a hotel swimming pool sign in Cambodia that had giant painted bullet points of all the requirements of bathers, including one saying: "No pubic hair visible!" The letters were so large it almost looked like a billboard, but it's fair to say any such hairs were safely hidden during my dip.
Just the other day a Travel Bugs reader named Arran, who's a Kiwi expat living in Japan, sent me a photo of a warning sign from a train station. The sign lists all the prohibited behaviour in the station and makes the threat that any violations will result in PUNISHMENT. My word! The first three no-nos are fairly innocuous directives against selling goods, collecting signatures (presumably for petitions as opposed to autographs from celebs) and busking. But the fourth one is a doozy: "Anything that annoys people".
Ha! I love it. On the same sign that asserts these bullet points are "laws" not to be broken, they have something as wondrously vague as "Anything that annoys people". And fair enough, no one likes to be annoyed by fellow patrons of public transport, but quite whether being annoying would stand up in a court of law remains to be seen. You wouldn't read about it.
More on cleaning binges
A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the incontrollable urge my wife has to start cleaning the house just as we are meant to be out the door for a weekend away or holiday. As I explained in the column: "Normally it involves a full bathroom clean that begins approximately the exact moment I'm bunging the bags into the boot. I'll come back inside and call out to my darling wife, saying "All right! We're all set!", only to find her armed with Exit Mould and rubber gloves," — Travel Bugs, April 23.
Well, from the feedback I had from the column, it turns out she's far from being alone in this. Peter wrote to me saying, "I have suffered this problem for 55 years. My wife does exactly the same plus more, like putting washing out or pulling weeds out of the garden when all dressed up to go out to dinner". Oh Peter, I feel for you.
Tammy, on the other hand, said she could totally relate to my wife, including for the reason that, "if I don't make it home again my friends and family wouldn't be able to think 'OMG, what a mess to leave her house in!'"
Readers like Karen and Megan pointed out that this last-minute cleaning frenzy is worth it for the immaculate house you get when you come back from a holiday, while Roxanna and Adrienne said this is nesting behaviour and becomes heightened during pregnancy.
Whatever the explanations, thanks as always for reading and taking the time to write: timr@newstalkzb.co.nz.
Tim Roxborogh hosts Newstalk ZB's Weekend Collective and blogs at RoxboroghReport.com