Editor's Note: With Laura off in Japan, we needed something for her column this month, but didn't want to recycle an older piece. So, after a few minutes of looking stupidly at each other, we all came to the same conclusion -- time to hit the bar! When I eventually woke up the next day I decided to ask her mom to write something, and with the results below, we think it's obvious that talent is in the genes... - DG

Traveling Blues
by Debra Goodman
 
In countless Septembers, when you returned to school, the teacher told you to open your notebook (or Trapper, or composition book, depending on which generation you belonged to), and the assignment was “What I Did Over Summer Vacation.” Countless kids related how their trip to Grandma’s went, or how many baseball games they played, or how they beat Final Fantasy 3 or 33, maybe even how much they enjoyed Disney World or Canada or their trip with Mom and Dad to the Caribbean.
 
My best vacations were staying at home.
 
No need for messed-up schedules, for interrupted sleep in noisy hotels, for nausea caused by wild rides up Space Mountain, for too much food and too little rest, too much noise, and that most awful of vacation issues: air travel. See, I get airsick. Horrors.
 
For those lucky souls whose cast-iron systems regularly handle things like beer and tacos with ease, the only way to explain airsickness is to imagine you get on a plane, sit down in your seat, smile through the takeoff, and as soon as the wheels are off the ground and the plane begins wobbling in that third dimension, your stomach falls out and you’ve caught a case of very nasty stomach flu. Nausea. Sweating. The acid taste in the back of your throat. The faint ringing in your ears. The empty-headed, empty-stomach, empty-hearted feeling that if you live to see solid ground again, you will never, never leave it the rest of your life.
 
It isn’t fear. I was never afraid I’d die in a plane. I was afraid I’d live -- forever. Throwing up.
 
Well, anyway, enough disgusting and distressing information from one of the afflicted… I’m here to tell you there’s a cure, and I found it. It’s called “Dramamine Less-Drowsy Formula,” and it’s also known as meclizine hydrochloride. It’s how I spell R-E-L-I-E-F. It works for 24 hours, which means you don’t have to nervously stage it to within 30 minutes of takeoff (and then what happens if your flight is delayed?). It doesn’t make you a zombie like the old Dramamine did, walking druggedly through airport terminals as if you had just gotten out of the hospital after a lobotomy. It doesn’t cause any horrible side effects like hairy palms or crossed eyes, just a mild euphoria that comes in handy if you’re an anxious traveler like me, and a tendency to doze off if you do happen to sit down somewhere in a boring location like an airport terminal for a layover or an airplane seat for a four-hour flight. (In fact, dozing off might be one of the benefits, and it could go a long way toward explaining the mild euphoria.)
 
I found Dramamine Less Drowsy last February while preparing for a trip to Austin. The last time I had flown before that was in the summer of 1990, when my normal, Drowsy, Drugged-up, Comatose Dramamine had made me so groggy (but non-nauseated) that I complained about how badly the condo in Frisco was built. I said it was a shame they built the building so badly that it swayed as you walked up the stairs. The next day, with Killer Dramamine out of my system, I was surprised at how sturdy and solid those stairs were. Anyway, last February I knew I couldn’t fly without some help, even if it knocked me out, so I decided to try a different chemical. And voila!! I not only wasn’t sick, I was smiling and happy and fairly alert (as long as there was nothing boring around, like a droning jet engine or a four-hour delay in Dallas for snow). I felt good. I sailed through the whole traveling day like a world-class jetter. I felt so good, in fact, that it occurred to me to take Dramamine at home when I got crabby and tired, on the premise that after all, I am traveling… up and down the stairs.
 
Now I see why people do mind-altering drugs. When something in your mind sucks, like worrying about bills or Iraq or AIDS or neutering the dog -- why not alter it? Take a Dramamine Less Drowsy and smile your way through the next 24 hours. But don’t say you heard it here, because I don’t have a medical license, and altering sucky minds isn’t what it’s meant for. Maybe you can rationalize that you’d better take some to make sure you’re prepared if a chance for an impromptu airplane trip comes up in the next 24 hours. You’ll want to be all ready just in case.
 
Target sells it. Bon voyage.

~~~~~

Debra Goodman is an all-around awesome person to know. She's delightfully literate, and has an excellent (mild) obsession with television Christmas Specials. You should send her email.