HOW TO!: UnScene’s Weekly Column About How to Do a Thing

HOW TO!: UnScene’s Weekly Column About How to Do a Thing

– by Rich Karski

Welcome to another edition of Rich Karski’s HOW TO!: the weekly online column that rehabilitates fringe members of society at a rate comparable to America’s prison system.

It’s the summer, which means everything is hot and I hate it because I refuse to wear shorts because I’m a goddamned adult man and nobody wants to see our terrible fucking legs. If you’re a grown man who wears shorts for any other reason than playing in the NBA then you are probably also one of those people who wears their backpack on public transportation and spins around in circles like a moron obliviously swinging it into people. I hate you.

Anyway, summertime is pretty dead in the office, because people like to take vacations with their awful families because it makes them feel like the 51 weeks’ worth of useless corporate slavery they endure each year is actually worth it. It isn’t. Every summer millions of people flock to America’s beaches and pretend that humans belong in the ocean even though that’s where hideous monsters live and all of our sewage and trash goes.

People who chide me for smoking all year gleefully spit in the face of melanoma by laying in dirt and destroying their flesh with UV rays, BECA– USE IT’S SUMMERTIME THAT’S WHAT YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO DO! No it isn’t. There are much better ways to spend your free time than enduring jellyfish, sunburns, and children urinating within inches of your exposed flesh. That’s why this week I’m here to teach you:

HOW TO PLAN A VACATION

STEP ONE: Avoiding Other People Who Are On Vacation

Nothing ruins a great vacation like everybody else. Remember when you were a kid and your parents would take you to their favorite vacation spot, and you would spend 18 hours in traffic, then six hours trying to find parking, then you would be at the beach for about 45 minutes before they got into an argument and your mom dragged you home while your dad stormed off to get drunk? Well, if your parents weren’t idiots and didn’t pick the same fucking place that everyone else decided to go to for vacation, maybe they wouldn’t have gotten divorced and maybe your sister never would have ended up pregnant and could have finished high school instead of marrying that guy who worked at Jiffy Lube and then went to prison for robbing a pharmacy and is now a weird born-again Christian.

Either way, to avoid future tragedies, I would suggest going somewhere that few people know about or would even want to go. Gaza seems like a trendy pick right now for places to avoid, and it’s got sand, excitement, and some sightseeing opportunities that you might want to check out now because I don’t think they will be around much longer.

If a warzone isn’t really your cup of tea, my personal pick would be Chernobyl. It’s quiet, beautiful, and there’s not a soul around for miles. You can check out the abandoned schools and factories, feed the mutated wildlife, and if you already have cancer maybe all that extra radiation is just what you need! Think about it, you could spend your vacation surrounded by disgusting mutants, ingesting poison, and fearing for your life at every turn, or you could skip Disney World (BURN!) and check out someplace that isn’t filled to the brim with big fat trash folk.

STEP TWO: Seeking Out Advantageous Corruption

If you’re going to leave US soil, you’re going to want to research the justice system in whatever country you plan on visiting. I’ve seen almost every episode of “Locked Up Abroad” and I can tell you that if there is one place you never want to be locked up, it is Alabama, but “abroad” comes in as a close second.

You don’t want your vacation to end with you upside down in a gulag with a man’s testicles in your mouth (unless that’s what you DO want, in which case please send me a private message and I can send you information on where to go to make this happen.)

In order to avoid this, I suggest visiting a country with rampant police corruption, and researching how much cash is required to get you out of certain crimes. Oh sure, you could always go on vacation and NOT commit crimes, but could you really consider that a vacation? You spend all year at your desk, doing ALMOST ZERO CRIMES AT ALL, and you finally get a chance to cut loose and you’re supposed to obey laws in a country that probably didn’t even have any six months ago?

Sounds like somebody isn’t living life to the fullest. Don’t be one of those people. Just bring enough cash, travelers checks, and fancy American blue jeans to buy your way out of the clink and then you don’t have to worry about how disorderly your conduct is, what you desecrate, or who you hunt for sport.

STEP THREE: Finding Alternatives To Air Travel

Okay, even before that one plane got blown up and the other one disappeared (MY THEORY: It flew into a fault line created by an earthquake and the passengers are now LIVING IN THE LAAAAAND OF THE LOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSTTT and maybe have already been eaten by dinosaurs at this point) air travel was still a miserable experience. Sure it gets you places faster, but you also get your genitals laughed at by GED students who spend their free time defending either Beyonce or Anthony Cumia in YouTube comments.

“But Rich how am I ever going to get anywhere without going in an airplane?!” Jesus don’t you ever learn how to not ask questions? How did people get places before planes were even a thing? They stowed away on commercial cargo ships, of course!

The first thing you’re going to need to do is find a crooked longshoreman and don’t worry because they’re all crooked (HAVE YOU EVEN WATCHED “THE WIRE” YET?!) You just slip him $100 to stick you in a can, and bring as many supplies as you’ll need to last you the 4-6 weeks you will be at sea. Also remember to bring a bucket to be used for restroom purposes, and a large knife or some gypsy charms so the crew doesn’t decide to sell you into slavery (and they WILL try, but there is nothing that terrifies seamen like a gypsy’s curse or being stabbed a lot of times.)

Once you dock somewhere acceptable for vacationing purposes (basically anywhere but Greece, which is the Florida of Europe) you can disembark and enjoy the local fare (weird fish) and entertainment (unlicensed street fights between low-wage dock workers.) Depending on which port you end up in, your transportation options for moving inland will fall somewhere between train and man dragging you on a sled. Worst case scenario you will be beaten, robbed, and left for dead, which is still preferable to flying United.

STEP FOUR: Covering Your Tracks

Finally, it isn’t a true vacation unless you leave it knowing that you can never speak about the things you’ve seen and done for the rest of your natural life. Sure, most people will put all kinds of pictures of their “vacations” on social media, but do you want to be one of those people? “Ohhh look it’s me and my fiancé at the Taj Mahal!”

Wow great, that’s amazing. Know where else I can see a picture of the Taj Mahal? In a fucking book. Your vacation was as exciting as a book. Now go home to your job at the BANK Linda, we’re sick of seeing your garbage face and your fiancé looks like the guy from Smashmouth.

Don’t be like that idiot Linda. Keep all descriptions of your vacation as vague and cagey as possible. When people ask where you’ve been for the past 12 weeks, just casually inhale your cigarette and say something like “here and there.” Or better yet, tell people you were walking the earth like Kwai Chang Caine from “Kung Fu” (do people still know about “Kung Fu?” If they don’t, even better, because then you can just pretend that you made it up yourself.) Forge credit card receipts to make sure that nobody can pin down where you were on a specific date. That way, the war crimes tribunal won’t have much to go on. For all they know you were never in Uzbekistan at all.

Avoid using any specific local customs that may be traced to one place or another, unless these customs happen to be some kind of cool knife trick that starts off real scary but then gets kind of erotic. Use that a lot. Most importantly of all though, relax and have fun! You earned this!

So there you have it.

Four easy steps on planning an unforgettable vacation. Now go out there and disappear into the darkest horrors that mankind has to offer!

Image was pulled from a Bing image search of “funny vacation”  If you are the owner of the image and would like credit or to request it be taken down please contact please contact UnScene here.