H. Ryder Haggard’s Ayesha, a powerful African queen with supernatural powers, appeared in his best selling novel of 1887 “She.” Ayesha was also known to those she ruled as She Who Must Be Obeyed. Almost a hundred years later Rumple of the Bailey, the British TV barrister, used the She Who Must Be Obeyed sobriquet for his wife Hilda.
My version of she who must be obeyed has decided to spend the rest of her life playing bridge and booking trips to faraway places. Most recently she decided to spend a lot of loot and a month or more visiting Southeast Asia, including Singapore, Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, South Korea, and Japan, with our daughter and me.
Reservations were made before I got a vote, but since she must be obeyed, unless I can conquer technology and post news from several thousand miles away, Podunk Pundit is likely to fall silent for the duration. In addition to missing writing to you, the timing of this trip means I’m probably going to miss the Super Bowl, the beginning of the Republican primary season, and several of the endless court appearances of America’s most indicted ex-president.
It is also possible that this voyage will cause me to miss good health and a few more years alive. You might regard this as geriatric hypochondria, but I did a little research and have concluded this junket might be a tad perilous. I went to the indispensable source of the CDC. It has travel advisories online for stops all around the world. In this case, I found the results remarkably alarming.
The list of possible tropical diseases I will encounter, while cruising Southeast Asia include: Typhoid, Paratyphoid (whatever that is), Coronavirus, of course, in its latest incarnation, Tuberculosis, Leptospirosis, Schistomiasis, Liver flukes, Malaria, Zika, Chikungunya, Dengue Fever, Cholera, Yellow Fever, Plague (really! actual plague). Hantavirus, Avian Influenza, and Tick Borne Encephalitis.
As you might deduce from that last entry, many of these maladies are transmitted not just by our fellow humans but by ticks and other bugs, especially mosquitos, mice, birds, dogs, cattle but also by water, food, and soil. So, though rabies and other old favorites have been stamped out in many places around the world, they are apparently still thriving in places on our itinerary.
Who would want to miss a trip that offers so many exotic threats to their survival? I would. I understand that She Who Must Be Obeyed regards such a voyage as a chance to tick several stops off her bucket list, but from my point of view, this trip could be the last stop on my kick bucket list.
Of course, it is possible that, like Ayesha, she has discovered the secret of immortality. I, however, am human all too human. She assures me I’ll have a wonderful time — or else. I know I’ll enjoy seeing some of the sights and won’t contract all the diseases available, but also won’t be able to avoid the wear and tear. Though I passed my annual physical, I suffer from several apparently inescapable side effects of aging that make daily life less than a picnic — seasonal allergies that make four seasons a year miserable, and pains in every joint from neck to hands, to knees to toes. As a result, I am less than enthusiastic about enduring several weeks on foot through crowded cities, braving tropical climates, and enduring cramped seats for 12 hour, sleepless, trans-pacific flights. At my age a one hour flight and a thirty minute walk seem sufficient.
I called this little rant Outward Bound because the thought of undertaking this long voyage reminded be of the 1930 film “Outward Bound” adapted from a stage play in the early days of talking pictures. Its cast included Leslie Howard, Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and several other actors now long forgotten. The plot concerns a group of people who don’t know each other and have no memory of how they got aboard a ship that is sailing through foggy seas from who knows where to who knows what destination.
It’s quite mysterious. Do they have amnesia? Have they been kidnapped? How did they get here? Where is the ship going? There is no one to ask since there seems to be no crew manning the ship. But on it goes until, at the end, they realize that they all have one thing in common. They’re dead and are sailing to oblivion.
I admit that comparing our trip to such a tale may be a trifle extreme. But in addition to subjecting my creaky self to a long flight there’s also the horror of the news lately. I don’t believe I’ll sleep well on such a flight, waiting to see if a door blows off somewhere over the
Pacific. But I’ll probably will survive. Tech permitted I may try to update Podunk readers from afar. If not, I should be back by late February and posting a thought or two. If not and the rest is silence, check the obituaries.