Feb 26, 2006 - Backpackers' Tale ...

To all backpackers, ex-backpackers and wannabies:  If you find you're having trouble readjusting to life back at home now that the travelling is over, here's a few handy hints to help you settle back in:

1. Replace your bed with two or more bunk beds, and every night invite random people to sleep in your bedroom with you. Ensure at least once a week a couple gets drunk and shags on one of the top bunks. Remove beds one by one as symptoms improve
2. Sleep in your sleeping bag, forgetting to wash it for months.  Add some bugs in order to wake up with many unsightly bites over your
   arms and legs
3. Enlist the help of a family member to set your radio alarm to go off randomly during the night, filling your room with loud
   talking.This works best if the station is foreign. Also have several mobiles ringing, without being answered. To add to the torture, ask a
   friend to bring plastic bags into your room at roughly 6 in the morning and proceed to rustle them for no apparent reason for a good half an hour
4. Keep all your clothes in a rucksack. Remember to smell them before putting them on and reintroduce the use of the iron SLOWLY
5. Buy your favourite food, and despite living at home, write your name and when you might next be leaving the house on all bags. This should include mainly pasta, 2 minute noodles,carrots, beer and a few boxes of wine
6. Ask a family member to every now and again steal an item of food, preferably the one you have most been looking forward to or the most expensive. Keep at least one item of food far too long or in a bag out in the sun, so you have to spend about 24 hours within sprinting distance of the toilet
7. Even if it's a Sunday, vacate the house by 10a.m., and then stand on the corner of the street looking lost. Ask the first passer-by of similar ethnic background if they have found anywhere good to go yet
8. When sitting on public transport (the London Tube would be ideal) introduce yourself to the person sitting next to you, say which
   stop you got on at, where you are going, how long you have been travelling and what university you went to. If they say they are going to Morden say you met a guy on the central line who said it was terrible and that you've heard Parsons Green is better and cheaper
9. Finally stick paper in your shower so that the water comes in just a drizzle. Adjust the hot/cold taps at regular intervals so that
   you are never fully satisfied with the temperature. Because of this frustration, shower infrequently.
   
   These simple but effective instructions should help you fall back into normal society with the minimum effort.
   

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