Anglo Adventure

Travel with a sense of humor

Tag Archives: humor


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That Time I Sent a Fax & Other Adventures

Boston Terrier, In Blankets

The boston terrier in his natural habitat.

I hesitate to call anything a series because it’s such a big commitment, but yes, periodically, I will be rounding up all the little everyday adventures in my everyday life.

What lucky duck won my blog giveaway?

First of all, I’d like to announce the winner of my first giveaway. Congrats Caitlin of Caitlinstern writes. She writes about writing, shares a lot of great short stories and journals her thoughts about writing. She’s also one of my first commenters from way back when this blog started.

She will be getting a copy of I Thought We Agreed To Pee In The Ocean by Alena Dillon. Even though you didn’t win, pick up a copy of the book, it’s a fun read.

Here is my three-part everyday adventure round up:

I. 

I sent a fax.

I know what you’re thinking: why, the f*ck would anybody send a fax? To weed out most of America certain types, a prospective employer asked applicants to fax, mail, or drop-off applications.

“This position requires some travel. Like back to 1993.”

Not knowing anyone with a fax, I went to our local mailing center. Mailing center dude hovered over the machine as it jerked the pages through then spit out a confirmation letter typed in a font I am sure no longer exists:

Your fax didn’t make it. We cannot tell you why. Please shove all 12 pages back into the machine. And make yourself comfortable. You’ll be here for awhile.

Mailing center dude threw up his hands in frustration as I scrolled through in-real-time status updates on my new iPhone. After three attempts, four apologies to him, and $5, I ended up mailing the darn thing.

That’s right. I used a second antiquated technology because the first didn’t work. Continue reading →


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My 19 Not-So-Strange Addictions

The Wilds of Illinois, Travel Blogs, Humor Blogs

Taking photos. One of my many addictions.

Remember that show, “My Strange Addictions?” I do. It’s where crazy people talk about their “strange addictions,” like eating paper towel or snorting baby powder or swallowing rocks. The producers should change the show’s name to “Really Gross Addictions That Are Hard to Watch.”

I did a mini-psych eval on myself. Turns out, my addictions aren’t so strange.

My not-so-strange addictions:

  1. Coffee. I drink coffee by the pot and in one of those metal commuter mugs construction workers use. If I don’t drink coffee, I feel like an anvil was dropped on my head and I can’t even make words. Dental hygienists hate me.
  2. Flavored creamer. I am a healthy eater who can’t help but to pour or squirt corn-syrup-and-sugar sludge into my coffee. Every morning. Milk just won’t do.
  3. Refreshing my email and social media in 10-second intervals. Now that I finally have a smartphone I do this from the comfort of my bed.
  4. Buying URLs. The minute I have an idea for a URL, the credit card is out and I’m searching for .COMS while wearing a visor, sunglasses, and sweats. I’m a regular day-trader-gone-nerd.
  5. Reuse. Recycle. Hoard.  I see a very-used piece of foil and go through a considerable crisis before I can toss it. I have more in common with hoarders and depression-era grandmothers than any of my young, thirty-something friends. I’ve cut my hands tearing apart those six-pack rings. I have a pile of plastic ice cream containers for The Leaning Tower of Cherry Pistachio, an ambitious art project I will never complete.
  6. British Comedy. I can sit through season after season of “Peep Show,” four episodes at a time. During the “IT Crowd”-era, I barely left the house. If a show comes out and Matt Berry’s in it, don’t expect me to leave the apartment until I’ve seen every episode.
  7. Cleaning out my ears. Every morning. Even if there’s nothing to clean out. This actually is one of the “strange addictions,” but I’ve never put anything in my ear but a Q-tip.
  8. Sweeping. When I am stressed, I go into sweeping overload. I also forget to eat so my floors are cleaned and I lose weight.
  9. Books. I have to avoid bookstores because if I go in, I am walking out with a poetry anthology at the very least.
  10. Taking photos.  I am not a person who snaps photos of every painting in a museum, but I am that person who schleps her tri-pod and camera to sunsets, beach trips, parties, hikes, etc.
  11. Moving. In the past four years, I have had three different addresses. I can’t seem to settle.
  12. Movie-theater popcorn. I could eat a four-course meal before the movie and I will still order overflowing movie theater popcorn, with that impossibly yellow liquid “butter.”
  13. Looking up offices on GoogleMaps. Me > apply for job > look up company on the Glassdoor > assess how glamorous the office is with the Satellite images of Google Maps > forget to actually prepare for job interview.
  14. Squeezing avocados.
  15. Reading “Missed Connections” on Craigslist. So many great stories from lonely people who think the girl that smiled at them on the bus might just be the one. It’s riveting stuff.
  16. Moisturizing. When I was 22 and unafraid of the sun, some gracefully-aged individual (an ex-boss) told me to start wearing sunscreen. I apply it everyday and feel my skin withering in the sun if I forget. Fortify that skin!
  17. Flossing. 
  18. Twirling the ring on my right hand around and around.
  19. Smelling shower gel in the grocery store.

What are your addictions? Confess below. No judgement here. 


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How Not to Write a Book Proposal

Eat,Pray,Love En Francais, Seattle travel Blogs

I hear she writes historical fiction now.

If I learned one thing in my writing career, it is to pay close attention to those contributor guidelines. I wrote these after reading editors’ complaints about bad submission practices.

Dear The New Yorker:

Attached please find my aritle on “10 Pig Mating Rituals You Weren’t Aware Of.” I don’t read The NEW YORKER, but I have heard you’re a quality, top ten literary journal. I really, really want to be a Writer because I want a heap of money to show up at my door along with beautiful women and I can tell all of my friends I am a PUBLISHED WRITER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay. You can submit payment to 1244 Monkey Sock Street, NY, NY.

Cheers,
Billy, “the Pen” Henderson

Dear Hiring Editor Person:

I AM HOPPING YOU COULD PUBLISH MY WORK. Oh sorry about the all caps, I am just super excited that excited about the possibility of writing for your website. Well really it’s the work of someone named Mark Twain only I replaced 20% of his words and sprinkled 30% of keywords related to your website in. this stolded article will get you losts a website traffic. please let me know how and when I will be paid.

Yours truly,

Sal Forrester Continue reading →


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Saturday Giveaway! Win a Free (Signed) Alena Dillon Book

You can win one copy of I Thought We Agreed to Pee in the Ocean, And Other Amusings From A Girl Wearing Sweatpants by Alena Dillon. I hereby certify it will make you laugh.

Comment on this post with your favorite funny person (comedian, comedy writer, whoever) and I will randomly select the winner by putting all of your usernames into a hamster ball then rolling it downhill.

Find out more about Alena Dillon by reading her blog. She appears to be great. I know if I knew her in real life, we’d have a blast.

The winner will be selected and contacted on January 26, 2014.

Read on for my review. Continue reading →

not-so-amazing-race-travel-humor


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The Not-So Amazing Race

Years ago, when I saw a casting call for the Amazing Race, I thought about it. Travel the world? Win expensive travel packages? Race around the world for one million dollars?

Then I did something I’ve never done before:

The Math.

After the tax man has cometh, one-million dollars turns into $500,000. That $500,000 has to be sliced evenly between you and your partner. Even if you carried your partner in your arms like a baby the whole time and still miraculously ended up in the winners’ circle; you’d have to split it. Otherwise, you’d be the jerk who said, “I should get 70% because I won 70% of the challenges.”

The most you can bring home is $250,000. IF you win. And then, you’d have save for your kids’ college, buy a house, retire mom, give to all the third world countries you traipsed through during your ’round the world jaunt.

That’s if you win.

Winning seems much less exciting to me. But there’s still the glorious-magnificent-earth-shattering travel right? Here’s the thing about that…

5 Reasons I’d never try out for the Amazing Race

1. I like to SEE things when I travel
I fully plan on seeing the world and writing as I go, but at my own pace. I get that the show is spliced and edited into episodes, but it moves so fast, there’s no seeing anything. If I go to Bali, I want to swim and surf without this nagging voice that says, oh yeah, it’s time to get out of this bath-like water now or I’LL BE ELIMINATED IN FRONT OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE.

2. I’m bad at sports

If the challenges involved eating 100-plus Cheetos in a sitting, or sniffing out the most infested food cart, it would be game on. But they don’t. No, the race comprises terrifying challenges only those who endorse sports drinks should do, like base jumping and freefalling.

This would happen to me. Twice.


3. I have no Interesting Backstory

Amazing Race teams fall into two categories:

Couples with gleaming teeth and tight calves or partners with an interesting backstory that can be broken down into a one-word nickname: Doctors. Pirates. Debutantes. Divorcees.

I don’t have much of a backstory. I transpose lettesr a lot but can’t say I’m dyslexic. I grew out of my scoliosis. I compulsively stockpile Cadbury mini-eggs, but that’s not a backstory. Continue reading →


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If You See Something, Say Something

tsa airport regulations rant detroit aiport

Bonus travel points if you tell me what airport this is

“If you see something, say something,” say the loudspeakers at Sea-Tac airport.

I saw something, I said something. And here’s what happened:

First off, I am not a hall-monitor type. I hated those smug kids with their little hall passes, threatening to rat you out for a harmless paper airplane.

Snitches get stitches.

If someone cuts in line, I roll my eyes and call it a day. I won’t tell on you for carrying an extra vile of liquid or playing hooky from work or cheating on a test.

But this was different. Way different. I saw a guy sneak a lighter through airport security. This was before I realized regular lighters without fluid are permitted in carry-ons. When did that happen? But who wants to carry a lighter without fluid – isn’t that just dumb? Doesn’t a lighter need fluid to work? Do they even sell fluidless lighters? Excuse me for my ignorance, I am not a smoker.

The Guy hid a blue BIC lighter under the vamp of a canvas slip-on, which was lurching towards the scanner in one of those bins. When I noticed it, he put one of those change tubs on top of his shoe. Clever.

My suspected terrorist tucks a tacky Hawaiian shirt  into his jeans.  And travels alongside a smallish, dark-haired woman who had a retired-teacher thing going on. I would guess mid-sixties, celebrating a 35th anniversary. Continue reading →