Traveling during the age of social media can be tough. I was just thinking how tough while packing for my family’s vacation. I mean, my family’s vacation that we are definitely not taking! Haha! I don’t know why I just said that! We’re are totally not going to be in Florida next week! That’d be gross!
But while I was on the phone with our post office asking them to hold our mail from 3/7-3/16, it occurred to me that you should never tell anyone you’re leaving town. After all, they might be robbers. Or related to robbers. Or, even worse, related to cat burglars. And if The Love Boat taught us anything, it’s that cat burglars are total assholes. “Hey, little Jimmy, know why your Uncle Larry has a closet full of black leggings and turtlenecks? That’s right, man, I’m a cat burglar. Ironic considering I’m highly allergic to feline dander, but hey, job’s a job. Now let’s go on Snapchat and see which of your buddies are going on cruises!” See? Assholes.
So that’s why after I tweeted “I’ll be in New Orleans this Saturday, where should I dine?”, I immediately followed it with another tweet saying, “I hope the armed rednecks crashing at my house while I’m away don’t eat all of my granola!” Uh-huh, classic misdirection. Obviously I don’t know any armed rednecks. (Well, okay, that’s not entirely true, but per blog policy, Wendi does not discuss her Dating Past.)
Yet another good idea when you’re going out of town like I most definitely am not doing tomorrow at 8 a.m. CST is to throw the bad guys off your path by not being honest on Facebook. I know! Strange concept! Because Facebook is nothing if not a BASTION OF TRUTH AND JUSTICE AND INSPIRATIONAL SAYINGS BY DISNEY CHARACTERS, but stay with me here, friends.
Instead of posting pictures of your sandy feet with the caption “Ahhhh! Can’t believe we’ll be here at the beach for 7 more days!!! #blessed,” post this instead:
Sure, it’s not nice, but neither was the firecracker their jerk teenage son put in my mailbox on New Year’s Eve. “Yeah, thanks for the Christmas card, cousin. Unfortunately it was blown to bits, so we didn’t get to see your dachshund in his holiday sweater this year. Sad face.” Seriously, those bastards are lucky I don’t zoom past the city jail throwing “Guess who’s on vacay?!” flyers out my car window with detailed directions and the neighborhood gate code and my suggested “Best Timez 2 Steal.”
Another thing I was thinking when I was making hotel reservations at the Orlando Hilton on 7th Ave., Room 212 for our stay next week is how you should never let people know exactly where you’ll be. This is why it’s dangerous to “check-in” on Foursquare. I’m not entirely sure what Foursquare is besides something that bugs the ever loving shit out of me on Twitter, but it seems to be a way to tell the world where you are at any given moment. Like “Marilyn Manson is at Lollie’s Wig Store.” Or “Jimmy Smith is now the Mayor of Weinerschnitzel.” And listen, if I was even a half-way decent cat burglar, I’d definitely go ransack the Weinerschnitzel Mayor’s house. Everyone knows that dude’s just rolling in the mustard. So go easy on the Foursquare if you have a lot of gold bullion under your mattress is what I’m saying.
But like I was just telling our cat sitter Janie, as she was getting into her Ford Taurus, Texas license plate R73 WKK, dent on the right side, and while she was holding our house key, safe combination and $100 in cat food money in her hand, discretion is best. If you go on vacation, do it wisely and safely. As the famous saying goes, “Loose lips sink ships and Instagram Disneyland pictures get your golf clubs stolen out of your garage, dumbass.”
Greetings from Florida, Wish I Was There!
What shoe size are you? No reason.
Have you been talking to my mother? Paranoia is justified if people really are talking to your mother.
I have so many pictures of my filthy house floating out there on the webs, I’m pretty sure that all cat burglers have figured that either I’ve already been robbed or my house violates all kind of burgler OSHA codes.
This wasn’t a strategy when I started but I figure it will work in my favor.
Why aren’t you taking your golf clubs to Florida? Aren’t there a million courses just waiting for divots?
I would wish you a nice vacation if you were going on vacation which I know you aren’t, so don’t.
Just one question: Let’s talk wine room, shallwe? I mean, whaddaya got in there, anyway? ’12’s? ’11’s? Would it be worth my while?
The Barry clock is the only valuable thing you own.
Aha – I actually know where you live. Pool party at your house next week!
Ha Ha! I wanted to bitch all week about how Tim left me to fend for myself in a snow storm and I slipped on our steep driveway and landed on my shoulder, but I couldn’t b/c I didn’t want to let anyone know he was out of town. Oh. But he just got back. Really.
Maybe if I post when we are out of the house, a tidy cat burgaler will come by and fold my laundry. Since
the squattersmy husband and sons appear to be allergic to doing it.When we went on vacation last summer, my husband didn’t want me broadcasting it. So I scheduled a weeks worth of posts in advance, then scheduled all my vacation-related posts to publish a week later, when I was actually back home. It was SO MUCH WORK. And nobody broke in. All that for nothing.
I know you don’t wear socks so I’m trying to figure out where the cash will be when I break in.
I can’t wait to hear your road trip stories – they are my favorite! But I will wait, because obviously it’s hard to create road trip tales whilst sitting around your highly secure, heavily armed home.