Bob Payne - BobCarriesOn

October 22, 2012November 26, 2012

As breakfasts shrink, B&B’s may have to call themselves Bed & Bananas

With a continued weak economy forcing B&B’s to put less and less on the breakfast table, some consumer groups are beginning to argue that these small inns should have to identify themselves by a name that more accurately reflects what they are offering.

“It could be Bed & Banana, Bed & Bagel, Bed & Bowl of Cereal, or, based on what we’ve been seeing more and more of, Bed & Boot Out the Door,” said one advocate, Bob Payne, of the Coalition for Something More than Juice and a Roll. “We just don’t think B&B owners have the right to call it something it’s not, any more than airlines have the right to call something leg room when clearly it isn’t.”

Payne said his group is in no way anti-B&B and has in fact been working closely with B&B owners, sticking with suggestions for alternative names that would not require B&B owners to order new stationery.

“And we are working with them in other ways, too,” Payne said. “For instance we’ve acknowledged the importance of Mom & Pop operations by showing owners how they can better profit in these difficult times by cutting out free night stays, or even discounts, for their parents.”

In related news, the Bacon Council of America and the Association of Burrito Makers have both indicated they think the B&B idea might have merit.

October 18, 2012November 26, 2012

Convenience store owners concerned by American Airlines plan to hire new flight attendants

The announcement by American Airlines that it plans to hire 1,500 new flight attendants to replace the more highly paid ones it is getting rid of has raised an alarm with convenience store owners across the nation.

“It’s a case of poaching, pure and simple,” claims convenience store spokesperson, Bob Payne, who says he is already getting reports that convenience store clerks who would normally be using their breaks to filch items from store shelves are now instead filling out flight attendant application forms.

“The fear in the industry,” Payne said, “is that the perceived glamour of a flight attendant job will create an allure too strong for many convenience store clerks to overcome, even though a starting flight attendant gets paid less.”

Payne said convenience store owners feel doubly ill-treated because many of the skills they spend weeks training their employees for – dispensing beverages, keeping certain doors locked, differentiating a normally angry customer from a deranged one — are just the skills the airlines are seeking, too.

In related news, a report just out shows that the number of American Airlines pilots who are applying for jobs at convenience stores is at an all-time high.

October 17, 2012November 26, 2012

Overly polite TSA agent causes JFK shutdown

JFK’s Terminal 4 was shut down for more than two hours yesterday following an incident that resulted from a poorly trained TSA agent accidentally saying “please” when asking a passenger to remove his shoes.

“I knew something wasn’t right when the guy failed to say anything about my garden rake,” said the passenger involved, Bob Payne, a yard equipment salesman from Pelham, New York.

Then, when the agent politely asked Payne to remove his shoes he said he was so shocked he involuntarily cried out, not realizing how much it would upset the chicken that the man behind him had in his carry-on, or that the drug-sniffing dogs would go after the chicken so aggressively.

“I can tell you all hell broke loose,” Payne said, “with just random passengers, including one old lady in a wheelchair, wrestling to the ground anyone who looked suspicious to them.”

A TSA supervisor on the scene said security experts were able to instantly run a background check on the agent involved, and discovered he’d been on the job less than a week. The check revealed, too, that he had previously worked distributing The Watchtower magazine for the Jehovah’s Witnesses. ”And sources tell us that’s a group notorious for programming its people to be polite to every member of the public.”

The supervisor said the agent had been put on administrative leave until he could be more thoroughly trained in proper TSA procedures. “He should be back at work by this afternoon,” the supervisor said.

In other news at JFK, a cash–strapped organization that looks after the health and welfare of airport employees announced it finally had the resources to hold the raffle they’d been planning for months. The prize, an organization spokesperson said, would be a chicken.

October 15, 2012October 20, 2012

Guyana Indians amused when travel writer survives after they abandon him in rainforest

Although much of my travel could have the word “adventure” appended to it, there have been only a dozen or so occasions when I felt I was at some risk of being eaten. Here’s the introduction to a story I wrote about one of those times, in Guyana. I’ll tell you ahead of time that I never did get a fire started, something I greatly regretted as I lay alone in darkness so thick I couldn’t see the machete I was holding as I listened to the distinctive coughing sound a jaguar makes. I did survive, or course, something that both surprised and amused the Indians who had abandoned me:

Shortly after sun-up on the Burro-Burro, a cocoa-colored river that meanders through the heart of a nearly pristine rainforest in the South American country of Guyana, one of the other occupants of the battered outboard boat we have just edged up onto a steep, muddy bank gives me some last-minute advice.

“As long as you have a fire, it’s okay,” he says, “You’ll have no bother from the mosquitoes, the spiders, the snakes, and—he pauses, with what I hope is not uncertainty—the jaguars.”

The speaker, Lionel James, whose name and fluency with English are legacies of now-independent Guyana’s British colonial past, is a member of a tiny group of indigenous people known as the Makushi. For the past week, I have been in the rainforest with a half dozen Makushi hunters as they have tried to teach me to survive without the conveniences, and even, some might argue, the necessities, of modern life.

Now, to see if I have been paying attention, they are leaving me on my own for a night or two along a section of river far from our already remote camp. I am without food or shelter, and have with me only a machete, a few fish hooks, a flint for starting a fire, a bow made of forest hardwood, and a small bottle of iodine to kill (most of) the undesirables in the river water I’ll be drinking.

As I ascend the bank, my machete drawn and my steps tentative, an overhead limb almost immediately snags the Indiana Jones-style hat I thought looked so cool when I first tried it on at a post-Christmas sale at a mall in the States. I suppose I should consider it a first victory that the hat isn’t a snake.

“See you soon, maybe,” says Lionel as they push the boat back out into the river.

“Maybe,” reluctantly agrees the boat’s driver, Sparrow, who, I can’t help but observe, has the cover off the outboard motor, as if there is some problem that might signal its approaching demise.

The story appeared in the March 2010 issue of Conde Nast Traveler. You can read the whole thing here.

October 12, 2012October 12, 2012

Afghanistan Adventure Tours? You bet!

On my twitter account @BobCarriesOn I recently wrote:

Travel company to offer epic Afghanistan adventure tour in footsteps of guy who sweeps area for landmines

I assumed that anyone who read it would know I was kidding, in part because I am kidding just about every time I Tweet something, or post on Facebook or Google+ or write for this blog, which is titled, helpfully, I would like to think: Bob Carries On – Bob Payne’s Travel Humor.

At least one reader, however, took me seriously enough, it seems, to ask for a link to the travel company.

Perhaps the reader was a regular follower, and was paying me back in kind. Or perhaps he is a more mild-mannered iteration of those readers who have demanded, with a sense of outrage and challenge, that I produce my sources. Tweets/Posts they have railed against include:

Fashion Week Cruise ends in disaster when ship sinks but passengers refuse to wear off-the-rack life jackets

Claim of discovering previously un-contacted Amazon tribe dismissed after some tribe members found to have Wi-Fi.

To enhance on-board experience, first North Korean cruise ship considers installing working toilets.

In victory for environmentalists, Serengeti highway plans scrapped; subway line to be built instead.

In effort to get passengers to pay more attention to lifeboat drill, cruise line dresses crew as Somali pirates.

It’s only coincidence, I am sure, that the majority of these have come from people one might likely encounter on a cruise ship. I do, however, like to think of Bob Carries On as a full-service site, so in that spirit I have included a link for readers interested in Afghan Adventure Travel.

October 10, 2012October 20, 2012

Presidential debate makes clear the importance of hotel pillow menus

After watching the presidential debates, about the only thing most observers could agree on was that the candidates needed a good night’s sleep. To help with that, one hotel, New York City’s The Benjamin, has added a set of presidential selections to their pillow menu. Chosen by the Benjamin’s Sleep Concierge, they are designed specifically for the Democratic and Republican hopefuls, but will also be available to hotel guests through election night, although the hotel has added a disclaimer that they will not be responsible for any politically inspired pillow fights.

Barack Obama’s selection, the environmentally friendly Pillo1 (TM) , is designed for optimal alignment no matter where stress might be coming from, while Mitt Romney’s, The Boomerang, is constructed to provide maximum support of any position and protection against any remarks he makes that might come back to cause him trouble.

While BobCarriesOn.com fully endorses any effort that has the potential to cause some ruckus in a hotel bed chamber, we feel The Benjamin has not gone far enough. There should be a selection of pillows that commemorate not only the current candidates but some of our most notable past presidents, as well. A few of those presidents, and their pillows, might include:

George Washington — The Executive Traveler — Designed in honor of a president known for sleeping just about everywhere, this compact model can be easily concealed beneath a greatcoat when checking out, then produced again when a quick nap is in order during chilly night-time crossings of the Delaware.

Abraham Lincoln — Honestly, Abe — He was the great Emancipator, and a wit to boot, but to truly reflect this president you’d want a pillow made of sturdy, inexpensive materials capable of standing up well to hotel guests who act like they were brought up in a log cabin.

Herbert Hoover — One Hundred Percent, All Natural, Feather Filled — As the president who famously promised “a chicken in every pot,” it is only right that Hoover be remembered with a pillow that could have made good use of all the chicken feathers his policy produced.

Franklin Roosevelt — No Pest Pillow — A fearless leader whose ringing words helped get the nation through difficult times, FDR would be happy to know the specially-treated pillow named for him means that no hotelier should ever have to say, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. And bed bugs.”

Bill Clinton — Tagged for Evidence — Ideal for recalling a president who never quite understood that when Abraham Lincoln proclaimed “Four Score” he wasn’t bragging about the number of illicit relationships he’d had in the Oval Office.