• What's ticked?
• Accolades
• Contact us

c o l u m n s

• Cheap Charlie
• ChrisCrossings
• Err Travel
• Leocha
• Travel Notes
• Archives

Escape to New York
The Occidental Tourist · January 1, 2001

By now, many loyal readers of this column have a distinct impression of the Tourist. They figure he's perpetually cranky, hopelessly cheap and - when it comes to sparking romance in his marriage - he makes Carrot Top look like Cary Grant. They assume that, to the Tourist, fine wine and dining means takeout from the Red Lobster and a six-pack.

Ahh, the abuse that comes with Ticked territory. But the truth is, the Tourist just spent six months planning a blowout, fifth-year anniversary celebration for him and the beloved missus: Three days in New York, right before Christmas.

The missus picked out the venue early this year, and the Tourist took it from there: No arrangements were made by her, and the Tourist made sure there were plenty of surprises on the trip.

And, for once, he took a 'spare no expense' position. Hotels, restaurants and other highlights were first-rate. Because there's one thing men need to learn about maintaining a marriage injury-free: You're not allowed to screw up the major anniversaries ...

Editor to Tourist: This is all very big-hearted of you, Tourist. But I've been wondering why there's $3,500 missing from the Ticked.com Pension Plan.

Tourist to Editor: Hey, taking an interest-free loan from available company resources should not necessarily be interpreted as a felony. At the very least, gimme a couple months to pay it back before calling authorities.

At any rate, the trip demonstrated that no matter how much you plan - or how much you're willing to spend - things can and will go wrong. The Tourist lived the life of a well-to-do traveler, in a Walter Mitty-esque fashion, and discovered even rich people can find something to complain about. (And feed your high-spending, travel disasters to the Tourist at tourist@ticked.com. He'll include the best write-ups in a future column. Don't forget your full name and city/town of residence.)

In New York, here's what got under the Tourist's skin:

- He booked a nice seat on the train instead of the plane, thinking it would be more romantic. Well, throughout the ride, the cold air blew in hard because of people incessantly walking in and out of the car. On the way back, we tried seats farther away from the sliding doors, and found that the heat was cranked up so high. We had to peel off three layers of clothing to avoid turning into puddles of sweat.

Then, there was the gracious food-car service. The Tourist approached the Metroliner counter server on the way to New York from Washington, and she didn't even bother to look up from her paperwork.

"I'm not open yet," she told the Tourist.

"That's fine," he replied, politely. "When will you be open?"

"When I'm ready," she said.

OK, at this point, the Tourist inquired about an ETA interpretation of what 'When I'm ready' exactly means. Like, is 'when I'm ready' five minutes from now? Or a half hour? Because the Tourist's seat happened to be four cars away. And he didn't particularly want to go all the way back there if Miss Congeniality was gonna open shop in a minute or two.

"I'll be ready when I'm ready," she offered, as an ever-helpful, definitive answer. "Now go sit down."

Suffice to say, the Tourist didn't contribute any jingle-jangle to her tip jar.

- The missus dearly wanted to go ice-skating at Rockefeller, a grand New York tradition. So we waited an hour outside in the cold to get in. Of course, there was a clearly marked sign that spelled out both available skating times and prices. But what the sign failed to note was the fact that you could only pay cash. Now, being that we were standing out there freezing our fannies off, the Tourist would have probably appreciated the opportunity to get blood circulating with a walk to a nearby ATM. (New York happens to have them.) But he didn't find out about this until he finally got inside the complex to the cashier's desk. The bottom line: Since the whole experience cost $20 with skate rental and the Tourist was a bit short on actual cash, he had to sit on the sidelines and take photos of his wife while she got on the ice.

Next week, more irritating encounters, including clueless taxi drivers and bewildering in-room snack bars.

The Occidental Tourist is a magazine writer in Washington, DC. He writes for Maxim, POV, Capital Style and ABCNews.com. His column appears on Tuesdays. E-mail him at tourist@ticked.com.