Travel Trivia

Apparently some other people have had trouble understanding how to use the laundry cards at CERN. You insert the card and an initial charge is withdrawn. After a use you reinsert the card and press R for recuperation ("R" does not mean Run) to retrieve the unused balance from your wash or dry cycle. To wash is about 3.6sf and to dry about 3.6sf, so a load of laundry is apt to run you over $7. I had 10 sf balance on the card when I started, and 8.4 when I was done—so I must have picked up several people's un-recuperated balances. Curious. The balances must have accumulated over several users, since I generally don't get reimbursed more than a franc.

The deicer fluid sprayed out of those phallic hoses at O'Hare airport is pale green. Coming so soon after St Patrick's day I wondered if it was leftover beer.

Everybody (except the business class fliers) was being patted down and had their hand luggage searched before boarding the flight to Chicago from Brussels. Boarding has to start very early...

One of the shows on the in-flight entertainment was something called “Millionaire's Club” about a matchmaking service for the rich—or at any rate an attempt to find compatible ladies for the rich men. The proprietor is a fake tanned, puffed lips and inflated bosom type, which wouldn't inspire me to wonderful confidence in her taste or selection. The show features several rich men and a set of young ladies and follows their selection and interaction. Without sound (I use earplugs—very much cheaper and easier to carry than sound-canceling headphones), I couldn't make out the nuances, but the young ladies all struck me as off somehow—they set off the old bogosity alarm. Sometimes they were overinflated and miniskirted to the current style, and sometimes looked more normal—but none of them acted normally, and all would have left me hunting for the exit. The “Aha” moment came when I remembered that there was a camera crew with the couple—nobody is going to act naturally in that situation. Let's hear it for “reality” on TV.