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September 14, 2009

Doggie bags and hotel rooms don’t mix.

By Lauren Lee

 

 

Let’s not kid ourselves. You’re not going to eat the cold, three-quarters-ingested, styrofoam-soggy lamb chop with a side of fettucine alfredo the next day, are you?
 
No matter how delicious it was at the time, you are on a business trip, living the high life and are probably going to eat out again for three squares the next day, too. And the day after. So there’s really not a lot of time to fondly reflect on meals past.
 
With that in mind, just say no to the doggie bag.
 
Otherwise, the packaged leftovers will make their way back to the hotel, which you may or may not be sharing with a co-worker, and will then stagnate in the mini-fridge for the next four days.
 
There is a chance that said co-worker may be sleeping on a pullout couch with her face 12-inches from said mini-fridge and wake up disoriented, thinking she had fallen into a dumpster behind a restaurant.
 
Believe me, I was raised to be mindful of the children in Africa every time unconsumed food is discarded, but there has to be different rules on the road.
Hotel fridges usually manage a level roughly three degrees cooler than room temperature and they are not exactly the odour-corralling fortresses like our home refrigeration units.
 
If you were at home, you wouldn’t come back from a nice meal and put your leftovers on the window sill of your living room or bedroom for several days, would you?
 
I’ll make you a offer: You can have a get-out-of-jail-free card when it comes to not cleaning your plate when you are traveling if it means that I don’t wake up marinated in garlic. Deal?
 
 

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August 25, 2009

Business cards, people. Business cards.

By Dave Briggs

Crossing the border is starting to rank with surgery without anesthetic as a fun way to spend the afternoon. So, I offer this tip to my Canadian friends to make your next visit to the United States as smooth as possible: business cards.
 
Not passports. Business cards.
 
On a trip to the Jug in 2008, a U.S. customs official at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit took the time out of his busy schedule to impress upon me with the subtlety of a 10-ton press, that I had the IQ of a dung beetle because I wasn’t carrying business cards with my passport.
 
Having them in a bag in the vehicle wasn’t good enough to prove I work where I work. Having a copy of the magazine in my hands wasn’t good enough either.
 
Sure, sure, I could print up business cards in my basement saying I was the King of Paraguay or the president of IBM or Donald Trump or something. That’s not the point. You’ll need to have those business cards handy the next time you travel.

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