On my desk at home are the strewn makings of a summer vacation \u2014 scraps of paper and Post-It Notes. Legal pads and torn slips marked with lots of stars indicating I\u2019ve hit gold. Pay dirt. A bullseye. The traveler\u2019s Holy Grail. Maybe it\u2019s the perfect flight with the perfect departure time, or a not-so-long duration, or a price that won\u2019t make me question whether I really need my second kidney. <\/p>\n
I love these starred scraps of paper. They sing to me when it\u2019s vacation planning time. They sit on the top of the stack and as I walk by, I marvel at them and say things like, \u201cDid it again, Boss. You rock!\u201d<\/p>\n
Until \u2026 BOOM! Scandal rocks my perfect slip of paper: A dog has perished on an airplane flight. My family is enraged. They have blacklisted the airline. The very same airline on my precious scrap of paper. <\/p>\n
My plans go down with the dog. <\/p>\n
\u201cNO!!!\u201d I\u2019m told. \u201cNo, no, no, no, NO. We are not flying that airline. They kill dogs!\u201d
\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI see,\u201d I tell my socially-conscious wife. \u201cI understand the situation, and all the emotion surrounding it. I appreciate your care for the world, and your love of animals, I do. But don\u2019t you see that I built an entire trip around this one perfect flight? They have free onboard WIFI!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNice, dad!\u201d I hear a 12-year-old yell from the other room. (How did she even hear this conversation all the way across the house?) \u201cYou are going to equate the life of an animal to a \u2018perfect\u2019 flight and free WIFI?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut you LOVE free WIFI,\u201d I yell back across the house. I am met with the sound of an angry, \u201charrumph.\u201d <\/p>\n
Oh boy. I\u2019m sunk.<\/p>\n
I try again a few days later. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, remember that perfect flight I mentioned the other day? Well, the price got better. And now they\u2019re offering free tacos!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNO!!!\u201d I\u2019m told. \u201cNo, no, no, no, NO. We are not flying on that airline. Their CEO was just caught stealing sand off a beach. STEALING SAND!!! We, as a family, cannot support them.\u201d <\/p>\n
OK, what?!? Stealing sand? Is that even a thing? There must be a logical explanation \u2026 because the flight leaves at a decent hour in the morning and defies the space-time continuum: It literally lands before it even leaves! And beach sand? That\u2019s just silica! I can ship them a few bags from the hardware store.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it really that big a deal?\u201d I ask. Bad move. <\/p>\n
\u201cNice, dad!\u201d I hear the 12-year-old yell from her friend\u2019s house across town. \u201cSo, you don\u2019t mind destroying the environment and encouraging lawlessness \u2026 all for a free taco?!? Double-harrumph, dad. DOUBLE-HARRUMPH!!!\u201d<\/p>\n
What does she have, like, super hearing? And I really like tacos.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m still plotting. I can\u2019t let that little scrap of paper go. Can I? It\u2019s the result of hours of hard work. I\u2019m thinking of getting with the airline\u2019s PR people. Maybe there are some things I can suggest to help make it right. I can\u2019t take any more \u201charrumphs.\u201d I\u2019m not sure the walls in my socially-conscious house can take it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On my desk at home are the strewn makings of a summer vacation \u2014 scraps of paper and Post-It Notes. Legal pads and torn slips marked with lots of stars indicating I\u2019ve hit gold. Pay dirt. A bullseye. The traveler\u2019s Holy Grail. Maybe it\u2019s the perfect flight with the perfect departure time, or a not-so-long duration, or a price that won\u2019t make me question whether I really need my second kidney. I love these starred scraps of paper. They sing to me when it\u2019s vacation planning time. They sit on the top of the stack and as I walk by, I marvel at them and say things like, \u201cDid it again, Boss. You rock!\u201d Until \u2026 BOOM! Scandal rocks my perfect slip of paper: A dog has perished on an airplane flight. My family is enraged. They have blacklisted the airline. The very same airline on my precious scrap of paper. My plans go down with the dog. \u201cNO!!!\u201d I\u2019m told. \u201cNo, no, no, no, NO. We are not flying that airline. They kill dogs!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[573,561,565],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2018-nutshells","category-family","category-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1732"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1733,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1732\/revisions\/1733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nutshellcity.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}