Page 21 - Exotic | May 2025

hundred dollars, which aren't those kids' laptops. You can get a Hoveeltt-Pacman, a Dorl, an Aysus, a Lenervu, Sansang, Acre, and all the best names, with all the best prices. Yes, you can. Of course, you can, then when it breaks in two months, and you call the support line, only to discover that the number does not exist, and the company took your money and started a new company doing the same thing (this is real, and apparently legal in China). Plus, your teen daughter is going to really love her Orple Muckbook, then ten years later, you're estranged and telling your troubles to nobodies in a bar you've been to many times, but can't recall the name of. Come back, Mandy. We all miss you. I'll buy name brand, I swear!
take an Uber where the guy is making di- rect eye contact in the mirror while he drives. Then you get out, wearily set your bags down, and encounter the guest clerk. He looks at you like you just took a shit on his mother's cheat and is disgusted and an- gry about all that corn. "Hello," he says with barely the forced politeness of a Verizon Wireless support phone operator. "Are you staying with us?" "Why the fuck else would I be here?" you think to yourself. "Why, yes, I am," you reply with sleep-famished cour- age. He can't find your reservation. "Look, I brought a printout of my online receipt," you think, feeling your preparedness might have helped you and maybe earn a room upgrade. A half-hour passes. Fifty people come in and get their room keys in about 3 minutes. Do they have any hotel coffee around here? Aha! When you hear, "Sir, your room is ready." Finally. He gives you your keycard, and you lumber your crap to the elevator. Goin' up, bitches! Your room is a mere 20 feet from the elevator door. You slide the key, ready to do nothing but flop, only to notice the bed hasn't been turned down, and it doesn't appear to have even been cleaned. You call the front desk, and the goofy-looking manager answers be- cause nobody else has quite the Urkel-like voice except, perhaps, Urkel. You explain. "Oh, I'm sorry, sir. I didn't realize your floor wasn't on the cleaning schedule. If you wouldn't mind waiting about 45 minutes, it will be taken care of." Sure. You wait, and you wait, and they go in and take a brief 7 minutes to "clean" your room, which they did. Except for the bathroom. Are...are those tiger stripes?"
Kitchen Knives
To begin, I know plenty of people who have never known anything but the 35-dollar blister pack of knives, which you buy at the grocery store and just toss when they get dull or break.
However, once you get a good 1-200+ (or higher; if you were a chef or cook, you'd al- ready have one, though), it's like having a proper cheeseburger stuffed with cheese, made on homemade buns when all you've ever had before is those gas station burg- ers wrapped in foil for "freshness," when you know it has been there since CDs were popular, and whatever it is, wasn't ever a cow. I'm not saying that everyone needs a pricey knife, but if you ever have one, know they last forever and merely need a little maintenance now and then.
Transportation
Yeah, there are plenty of sites out there that have the entire purpose of sourcing or directly retailing cheap plane tickets. Most of them have names not even related to air travel. Momondo? eDreams? That sounds like a porn site. "Kayak? That's what you're sure you want to go with?" "Trust me, Bill, everyone will know we are about plane stuff." Then there's you, WIZZ. Fuck- ing WIZZ?! Oh my god, WIZZ. All WIZZing aside, the entire process of air travel is de- signed to frustrate the customer in the first place. Broken check-in kiosks, long lines, ugly people, smelly people, and people from countries who somehow managed to get here but cannot figure out how to get back. "Don't give a fuck; I just work here," staff and heaven help you if something about your purchase or flight happens. Then you're double-ought fucked. All for the pleasure of your "win"—getting a 75-dollar ticket to Baltimore in a cramped, smelly seat. Pay the extra bucks to make the end goal at least not like you bought a ticket into a sky-bound tube of pure hell.
Lodging
Once you arrive at your destination, you
There's my list. I was going to include soy sauce, too. But DO NOT EVER BUY THE GOOD SOY SAUCE. I paid fifty goddamn dollars for some shit aged in sake barrels for ten years because people said it was the best. It is. Now, it has ruined all other soy sauces for me. I used to be perfectly content with the little packets, but now I'm a snob, and I didn't want to be. Anyhow, if you'll excuse me, I've had a rough flight to Baltimore, people are trying to break into my unkept hotel room, and all I have is a shitty hard hat, a roll of one-ply, a Raven Arms .25, a $3 serrated kitchen knife and my Aysus laptop with which to defend my- self.
Caveat emptor, -Wombstretcha
Wombstretcha the Magnificent is a shrewd buyer, kitchen knife manhandler, writer, and retired rapper from Portland, OR. He can be found at his website, wombstretcha.com, on Twitter/X/whatever as @wombstretcha503, and on MeWe and (begrudgingly) Facebook as "Wombstretcha the Magnificent."
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