My biggest regret about having been born in 1985 is being almost certain that there are some technologies I will never experience. Some of them are so innovative I cannot even foresee their creation as I write this, but others have existed in some dreamlike form for ages.
I'm talking, of course, about teleportation. Teleporting has been a dream of mine ever since I first saw it being done on "The Jetsons" and the occasional "Star Trek" episode (I channel surf, I'm not a Trekkie).
The cold, hard truth is that I hate traveling. Now, don't get me wrong. I love new places, being exposed to a different culture, new topography, and fine cuisine. It's the getting there part that really irks me, which is what has prompted my friend Saadon to dub me the "quintessential non-traveler."
I'm a pretty inexperienced driver, so when I made the trip from my house in New Jersey all the way to Medford, Mass. alone last May, I thought I was a king. I had braved I-95 straight to the Tufts campus. And when I passed the campus center in my sister's 1995 Volvo, I rolled down the windows and pumped up my music. When I pulled into my driveway on Conwell Avenue I had a sense of contentment, of real-world achievement I had never felt before.
And then I decided to pull into the garage and proceeded to tear the entire bumper off the car and damage the right headlight. Let me repeat that in case you didn't catch it: I crashed into my garage. Rest assured, the $500 in damage was well worth it just so I could tell this story.
As bad of a driver as I am, I'm a worse backseat driver, and an even worse passenger-side driver. I think I have a condition called BSDT, Backseat Driver Tourette's. I believe this because I can be carrying on a completely normal conversation and still manage to randomly interject my own feelings on the driver's actions. It usually goes something like, "That's so great that you and Beth ... stop sign ... are getting back together ... yield ... I think it's important that you two ... PEDESTRIAN ... talked it over and decided to ... red light ... work it out."
I've taken three international flights in the past year and a half. I'm already pretty jittery on planes as it is, but there's something I've realized in traveling abroad: when the stewardess comes on the little microphone during turbulence, it sounds a whole lot scarier in a different language. When they're busy telling us politely to buckle our seatbelts and enjoy this new Hilary Duff movie, all I'm hearing is "Watch out b-ches, this plane is going down!"
I take the Greyhound bus a lot from South Station to Port Authority in New York, and if there's anything I've noticed over the past four years in terms of where they could use some improvement, it would be their security.
There is none.
Believe me, I've gotten on the bus with the wrong ticket several times, and I don't think it's because of my charm. One time last semester I was standing in line when a big guy with a puffy jacket asked if I could watch his bag while he ran to the store. People have done this for me in the past, so I said, "Sure."
As the line moved forward I kept kicking his bag ahead, further and further, until I was at the very front of the line, about to board the bus. I told the attendant, "This isn't my bag. I was watching it for someone on line." She stared at me, and like a robot just said, "You're not supposed to do that." I agreed with her and promptly boarded the bus.
And that's the day I realized how easily anyone can be implicated in a would-be bombing. When the guy finally got his bag and boarded he sat right near me. I apologized for leaving his bag out in the cold, but he shrugged it off and just gave me a fist-pound. So, I thought even if this guy was a bomber, at least he's really chill.
I just don't think I was made for travel. My psyche wasn't designed for road-trips or plane rides. Call me American, but I was built on instant gratification. I would love to go to point B, but it's so far. So, until teleportation is at our fingertips, I'll just chill at point A.
Maybe I'll watch a documentary on the Discovery Channel later about point B though, since I won't be going there anytime soon. I'll make some popcorn, maybe some hot chocolate. We can make an evening out of it. What do you say? Oh, you're busy? That's cool, maybe some other time. Man, I hate being awkward.
Neil Padover is a senior majoring in English. He can be reached neil.padover@tufts.edu.
