Too Much Talk Takes The Fun Out Of A Trip

A trip abroad used to mean simply that you obtained a passport, packed and went. Now modern science has made travel, like everything else, complicated. This was borne in on me recently at a cocktail party where my wife and I met a physician who had just returned from girdling the globe.

"How thrilling, doctor!" my wife said. "We've been saving for years to go around the world!"

"A most rewarding experience," the doctor said, carefully testing his drink. "If you take the necessary precautions."

"Oh, we plan to carry lots of travelers checks," my wife said. "We'll take a Cunarder from New York—"

"First, you'll both need a physical," the doctor went on firmly. "Then shots. Take along spare glasses and a prescription. And if you have a condition requiring emergency care—"

"I'm hipped on cycling through the English countryside," I put in. "Stopping at little wayside inns, you know."

"Wayside inns remind me," the doctor said, "of an emergency operation I performed in one. It was in Sussex, as I recall. Diabetic mortician from Grand Forks, Iowa. He had forgotten to wear his wrist tag giving instructions in case of—"

"Then Paris, the shops, the Louvre," my wife said. "After that we want to motor through the southern provinces, sampling wines, cheeses, bouillabaisse—"

"Beware of salads," the doctor warned. "My wife caught the devil's own dose of diarrhea eating some leafy concoction in a little cafe in Provence."

" Spain is what I'm really looking forward to," I said. "Gypsy dancers, amontillado, the bullfights in Seville."