On the first day of this month, the New York nightmare happened to me. The apartment beneath me caught fire. The girl who lives there wasn’t at home, but I’m lucky I was, because I had just returned from three weeks away. I’m fortunate my apartment wasn’t empty, because I smelled the smoke, then I… Read more »
A friend recently gently accused me of being too vocal on Twitter about bad customer service. “Do I henpeck too much?” I asked her. “It’s what makes you you,” she said. “Keep pecking.” Being a consumer reporter is one of the things I do. Being a travel writer, too, is a form of consumer reporting…. Read more »
The United States Postal Service lost $3 billion last quarter, and now its masters intend to cut overnight delivery, slow down mail, and close facilities (particularly in poor neighborhoods). Government-hating Teabaggers whinge, but the fact is that while the Postal Service is federally mandated, it does not receive taxpayer money. So if we’re going to… Read more »
I wrote this post on September 18, 2001. I haven’t changed a word. I titled it “Ago.” + + + + + + That morning, I was awakened by the silence. I don’t recall what woke me up early, at 8:45 a.m., but it must have been something. Probably something I heard in my sleep,… Read more »
Girl, you know it’s true. Mount Rushmore is empty-calorie patriotism, but it’s pretty. Local concerns overbuilt the amenities so much in the 1990s so that they’re still paying them off. Merely parking a car costs $11. Sculptor Gutzon Borglum took extreme care in rendering his four subjects accurately, but the piles of tourist junk hawked… Read more »
I visited the Minnesota State Fair in St. Paul and thinking of you, of course, I had my camera with me. I created this kind cool, kinda quiltlike portrait of what it’s like to go, with a special emphasis on all the many foods on a stick you can find there. And, oh yes, there… Read more »
When I rented a car at the Tulsa airport, I knew I was dealing with an officious company when I told the clerk my phone number and said she needed two. “I only use a mobile phone,” I lied. “We need two. It’s policy. In case you don’t return the car.” (“I could just give… Read more »
I traveled to rural Tennessee to cover a uniquely American shopping experience: a yard sale, annually held over the first weekend in early August, that spans some 675 miles of one highway. It’s called, not undeservedly, the World’s Longest Yard Sale.
We can feel comfortable that the Chinese are unlikely to covet this world record and swipe it from us, partly because they made most of the junk for sale at this one.
Whenever I get fed up with living in New York City, all I have to do is look up at the Empire State Building at night, and wait a few seconds for the flash.
Last week, I caught Delta trying to charge me more for a flight found when I was signed into its system. The same flight was $79 cheaper when I wasn’t signed into its system. In its response to me, Delta doesn’t deny that it delivered two conflicting prices to me. But Delta claims that the difference… Read more »