Cell phone down toilet. It happens. A lot

by Jamie Rhein on

This was a stay-in-the-car-until-the-last-line-was-finished type story. I was listening to “All Things Considered” on the radio on my way home. The theme was cell phones dropping down toilets and what people will do to get them back.

Several phones that made the big splash were dropped in a toilet while the owner was in transit. Airplane toilets, train toilets, bathroom stalls, port-a-pots. . .name a toilet-type and it’s a guarantee that a cell phone has landed in one.

One story involved a train in France. The owner went after the phone when it dropped down the train’s toilet. Instead of retrieving the phone, his arm became stuck. To get him out, the whole toilet had to be removed from the train at a later stop.

Another guy dropped his phone in an airplane toilet and was able to get it back. Unfortunately, even though he cleaned it, dried it off and then washed, and washed and washed his hands, there was a slight problem when he showed up at his business meeting. You see, after the plane landed, he made a phone call and unwittingly deposited a blue streak across his face. He found out about the streak when someone at the meeting asked about it.

One story that brings to mind Mike’s post about the Babykeeper Basic that hangs a baby from a wall of a door stall is the one about the woman who lost her phone while she was changing her baby in a port-o-pot. She could see the phone, but there wasn’t any way she was going to go after it.

Here’s the link to text of the NPR story. Along with being entertaining, it’s informative. Cell phones down toilets are considered to be acts of negligence by insurance companies. I call it bum luck. I’ve never had a cell phone land in a toilet, but I still have a vivid image of my car keys catapulting out of my hands on their own volition.

Politics in Rabbit Hash, Kentucky: Last day to vote for a jackass for mayor–literally

by Jamie Rhein on

Residents of Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, even people who don’t live there can vote for mayor. Following the tradition of the U.S. presidential elections, today is the last day to vote. The candidates are like no others. Up until this year, all mayoral candidates have been dogs, but the canines have competition. These days, the effort to vote in a town mayor have heated up. Travis the cat is a fierce competitor, the first time a feline has been in the race.

Then there is Higgins, the miniature donkey that is also a contender, although people can’t help resist making connections between politics and a jackass. I don’t know if that will hurt or help his chances. As of October 30, he was in 3rd place with Travis in 5th.

You can vote more than once, by clicking here. A vote costs a dollar and all proceeds go towards the Rabbit Hash Historical Society–a worthy cause, let me tell you.

Rabbit Hash, Kentucky, about 30 minutes from Cincinnati, is one of those American oddball kind of treasures on the banks of the Ohio River. The Rabbit Hash General Store has been around since 1831 and doesn’t look much different than it did then, although the goods have been updated.

The town got its name from a joke by one of the town’s people after a flood one year. All that seemed to be left to eat were rabbits and he quipped there would be no shortage of rabbit hash. Rabbit Hash. Get it?

As a bonus, when you visit here, if you follow Kentucky SR 58, guess where you’ll end up? Big Bone Lick, the place Meg recently wrote about in this post.

**I heard about this story on CBS Sunday Morning Show and had to watch. I’ve been to Rabbit Hash a few times. If you do go here, check out the Bybee Pottery if there is any in stock. It’s Kentucky pottery perfection, in my opinion.

Here is a clip about the election that was on CNN.

David Sedaris with Rick Steves: Funny travel incidents and observations like when flight attendants pass gas

by Jamie Rhein on

Two of the things I remember from an interview I heard with David Sedaris on Travel with Rick Steves is that Business Class is known as ICU because passengers are in need of attention and flight attendants pass gas as they walk up the aisles because the sound covers the noise.

A flight attendant told Sedaris that. Not, Heather, our Gallery Gossip gal, someone else.

Here are two travel tips during the conversation that Sedaris passed on in his sardonic m wry wit sort of way.

  • When staying in a hotel, you don’t put your clothes in drawers because that’s how you lose things.
  • As a matter of fact, don’t let your belongings wander more than two feet from your suitcase.

And here’s a bit of irony that Sedaris has noticed when staying in high end hotels. He pointed out that these hotels have half-hearted attempts at going green. He points out that they may tout going green with missives like:

Save the earth. Don’t make us wash these towels, save the earth.

Then with the turn down service, they turn on the radio and the lights.

He also says that, “Sometimes, I turn on the radio and I think, “Who the hell was in this room?” . . .like if the music is heavy metal.

Both Sedaris and Steves talked up travel in Japan which our own Matthew Firestone who lives in Japan could verify.

About Japan, Rick Steves says, “People were so unbelievably kind. In Japan, ordering was terribly fun. Japanese are so gracious. Only country I’ve been in where people regularly stop me and ask, ‘You look lost, can I help you?'”

Living in Japan helped Sedaris quit smoking. He wanted to quit smoking because so many hotels don’t allow smoking anymore.

To listen to the Podcast between Steves and Sedaris, click here. What I’ve passed on are only tidbits of the wealth.

Feeling flustered on a flight? Keep your pants on for heaven’s sake.

by Jamie Rhein on

One could keep a tally of flight experiences. Make two columns.

On one side write: “Great experiences where the crew and flight attendants were spiffy.”

On the other side write: “Travel misery where any minute you could go bonkers and take off your pants.”

Then, under each column, jot down those experiences that would fit under each. Geoff Vuleta does a similar activity in his article, “Tired and Impatient. Keep Your Pants On.” By the end I was laughing. Vuleta travels often and has seen it all.

From the women whose baby threw up on the both of them, but the attendant would not move the cart in order to let the woman pass by so she could get to the bathroom to clean up the mess– to the airline personnel who bought pizza for delayed passengers, he has an eye for what makes for misery, a bit of grace, and the absurd.

The part that made me laugh out loud was when Vuleta recounted how on one flight he was so flustered that he forgot where he was. When he took off his sports coat, he also took off his pants, neatly folded them, and put them in the overhead bin before starting to head down the aisle to claim his seat. It gave his traveling companion some comic relief.

Woman snagged at airport for packing banana plants in her underwear

by Jamie Rhein on

I suppose if you’re flying domestically in the U.S. and had three banana plants in your underwear while going through a security check, particularly if you’re female, you’d attract attention. But, after discovering you were packing banana plants and not a pistol, you might be allowed to walk on your merry way.

Although, just how well one could walk is another issue. Seriously, if you had three banana plants in your underwear, could you walk?

In the airport in Sydney, Australia, according to this story published in the Sydney Morning Herald, if you have even one banana plant in your underwear, you’d be in a whole mess of trouble. A whole world of trouble. More trouble than you probably ever imagined.

You’d be in trouble even if the plant was not in your underwear but tucked under your arm like a rolled up newspaper–Or if you were wearing it like a hat.

It’s illegal to bring banana plants into Australia no matter how you are carrying them. Banana plants carry nasty ailments that sound as if they could be sexually transmitted diseases.

“Better not, I have black sigatoka disease,” one might say. Or how about “fusarium wilt?”– or “moko disease?”

The woman apprehended by customs officials at the airport in Australia was trying to smuggle the plants in from Samoa. Although she doesn’t have any funky sounding diseases, she could be looking at 10 years in jail and a $66,000 Australian dollar fine for threating Australia’s banana industry.