True Confessions - The Happy Wanderer

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"They aren't laughing with you..." Yes, they are. Because I am hilarious. Always have been. Which means, looking at the above photo, you would think most people would fall into category "A." There seems to be, however, a lot of people that are in the category "B" frame of mind. Granted, the "B's" consist mostly of ex-girlfriends. And my parents. But after this, I'm confident that you will find you agree with the "A" guys. This one revolves around the tourism industry. In the 1970's, I was a kid in small-town Nevada, which might be the reason I'm always on the lookout for entertainment, because it was a pretty boring place. I was an athlete, and we neighborhood kids spent our summer days skateboarding, playing basketball, baseball, tennis, swimming, skateboarding, skateboarding, riding bikes, and skateboarding. But we also spent a fair amount of time at the library, reading. I also had a quirky little hobby of collecting things from Nevada casinos and tourist attractions. Ash trays, post cards, playing cards, match books, brochures, etc. I should take a second to point out that I also enjoyed going to the Post Office to see if I had gotten any mail. I liked getting mail. But mostly, my parents checked the mail. One day, a friend and I were at the library, and we discovered, in the magazine section, a nifty little publication called The Happy Wanderer. The Happy Wanderer allowed travellers to order brochures from all sorts of tourist attractions from all over the world. After all, if you are planning to go see the World's Second-Largest Ball of Twine, you're going to need a place to stay while you are in the area. You also might want to know where to eat, and other tourist traps to visit as well. So, you would simply fill out the detachable card, checking a box for each brochure of interest, mail it, postage paid, to The Happy Wanderer, and they would, in turn, contact the various companies, who would then mail you a brochure. Oooh! So we each ordered a few, and went about our day. I seem to remember my parents being a bit curious when "Your Happy Wanderer Request" brochures addressed to me started arriving in the mail, but it was fairly sporadic, so I guess they figured it was harmless. As we soon discovered, however, The Happy Wanderer was published quite frequently. "Oooh, a new Happy Wanderer!" And we would order more brochures. And so on, and so on, and so on. Soon enough, our mailbox was devoid of Happy Wanderer brochures. Instead, a yellow "You have an item that doesn't fit in your mailbox, please pick it up at the service counter" slip was in the box. Whichever of my parents happened to check the mail that day would then take the yellow slip to the service counter, where the postal clerk would hand over a rubber-banded stack of 40/50/60 or more "Your Happy Wanderer Request" brochures. This became a daily occurrence for a couple of months. "@@$$@&&!$! STOP ORDERING THESE $%&@!#$ HAPPY WANDERER BROCHURES! ?¥£€£¥£€@@#$%% !@@#$$$&* •???£?¥€} @!@#$$%%&" (my parents spared no profanity when I happened to displease them, which was often.) This caused my parents to hate me more than they already did (apparently, I was a constant source of embarrassment, or so I was told,) and the postal clerks hated me (after all, would YOU want to sort through, and bundle, double digit amounts of brochures on a daily basis?) Even after I had heeded the cease and desist order, it took weeks before the onslaught of brochures finally stopped. Too bad that with the advent of the Internet, The Happy Wanderer is no longer practical. It certainly amused me for a summer! Yeah, I rule! Have since 1964!