MUSTS & CAN’TS – by Don

Nov 1, 2023

Traveling can be tough.

Even tougher with family members.

And traveling with dogs can be the worst.

For example, are you worried that your wife will eat a bunch of poison mushrooms under the deck? What about jumping off a deck after an errant frisbee? Lapping up antifreeze from a neighbor’s garage? Biting you in the neck viciously?

Experts will tell you that your wife’s chances of experiencing these traumas are the same as your dog’s. But “the experts” also said at one time that attaching leeches to someone’s private parts would cure them of being phlegmatic. Or was it mercurial? No matter. Just thinking that leeches could cure anyone of anything should tell you that “the experts” are full of black bile and little demons scratching to get out of their skulls.

And that makes me more worried about my dogs than my wife whilst traveling. The dogs don’t have a health plan. They’re lower to the ground and closer to all the germs than Liana. They fart with no shame. And they can’t tell me how much barbed wire / toad / rat poison they ate whereas my wife is easy to understand until I’ve had about 8 beers.

It is with this in mind that when Liana and I took our trip to Newfoundland, we realized how easily our requirements for the rental property slipped through the cracks of the major short-term-rental websites. It simply wasn’t enough for the property to be “pet-friendly.” There had to be filters for all of us, dog and Biped alike, to get the vacation rental that best fit our diverse needs.

And so I present this list of filters I DEMAND be installed on every short-term rental website before I finish this whiskey.

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LIANA

Property Must:

• Boast a minimum of 1.5 Bathrooms with unlimited hot water.
• Not be a grandma house with cutesy knick-knacks or stenciling on the ceiling. 40 million pillows OK.

• Have potable running water from all indoor faucets.
• Possess excellent Wifi / cellphone reception.
• Have a working mechanical dishwasher.
• Be close to restaurants that offer local produce or a wine bar with fondue.
• Have a burlap sack of her enemies patellas personally delivered by The Seventh Horseman every day…. Oh wait… Sorry. That’s Auggie.

• Have a host who responds to her machine-gunned questions 24/7.
• Have access to the worst TV imaginable.
• Boast enough closet space to park a dump truck.
• Top quality linens.

Property Can’t:

• Employ a chemical toilet, outhouse, pit toilet, or other bathroom outside the main heated structure.
• Have fast food or chain restaurants as “Recommended Dining” in the welcome folder.

• Be painted any shade of yellow.
• Be exposed to blue collar people or entertainment of any kind.
• Have legions of biting, burrowing, swarming insects inside or outside of the structure.

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DON

Property Must:

• Possess at least one usable rocks glass.
• Have a large cubed / crushed ice-making and storage capability.
• Have Bushmills whiskey in a liquor store or bar within a reasonable distance for Liana to drive.
• Water used for ice must not smell of sulfur, have any major parasites, or conflict negatively with the taste of Bushmills in any way.
• Have a TV with local weather and baseball on it.
• Employ true blackout window shades in the master bedroom.
• Possess multiple, easily accessible escape routes or a comfy panic room.
• Have enough closet space for Liana to park a dump truck.

Property Can’t:

• Have close, inquisitive, friendly or elderly neighbors of any kind.

• Be within earshot of metalheads, frat houses, unemployed trust-fund jackballs, carnivals, amusement parks, outdoor concert stadiums, or trailer parks.
• Be in close proximity to a major or minor cult compound with 24hr chanting.
• Be surrounded by rednecks, hillbillies, Sons of the Soil, or any violent group that will smash out my windshield solely because I have a license plate north of the Mason-Dixon line and keep yelling, “HEY! I thought we burned this place down in the Civil War!”

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FUDGIE

Property Must:

• Have a wide lawn or similar to fetch tennis balls for hours at a time. Also pooping.
• Possess comfy couches.
• Have a 24hr Emergency Veterinarian within a 30-minute radius.

• Be near a Liana/Don-sanctioned body of water for long-range swim-fetching for hours and hours. At all hours.
• Be near easy to moderately-hard trails between 2-3 miles long.

Property Can’t:

• Be in a hunting zone during an active hunting season.
• Have a cat-person owner.
• Have nice or easily-damaged floors.
• Have white or light-colored furniture, rugs, bedding, curtains, walls, tapestries, or floors.
• Be in close proximity to jacuzzis, hot tubs, swimming pools, wading pools, deep puddles, hot springs, mud holes, swamps, bogs, marshes, quicksand, or tar pits.

• Employ delicate or ornate landscaping.
• Have elderly or infirm neighbors.
• Be five miles downwind of any compost pile or livestock.
• Be within “striking distance” of a graveyard, Native American sacred lands, temple, shrine, relic, or anything hallowed that is easily desecrated.
• Have or be close to cliffs, ledges, precipices, palisades, ravines, gullies, abysses, quarries, spiral staircases, catwalks, abandoned wells, or pits of any kind.

• Contain or abut properties with skunks, porcupines, raccoons, geese, ducks, bears, coyotes, wolves, alligators, crocodiles, or any kind of poisonous insects or reptiles.
• Be anywhere within 10 miles of a bear, muskrat, or ferret trap.
• Contain or abut properties with poisonous berries, poisonous mushrooms, poisonous ivy, poisonous oak, thorns, brambles, thistles, burdocks, or abnormally large Venus Flytraps.
• Be near chocolate factories, vineyards, antifreeze depots, industrial complexes, mining operations, refineries, bombing ranges, cargo container port facilities, abandoned hospitals, or nuclear waste sites.

• Be anywhere within a two-mile radius of a cyanobacteria, hepatitis A, rabies, parvo, distemper, mad cow disease, ebola, or mononucleosis outbreak.
• Have any decaying carcasses, restaurant dumpsters, or fish-cleaning stations.
• Have any antifreeze, rat poison, grapes, raisins, chocolate, or…. yaaaawnnnn…. I’ll get back to you later.

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AUGGIE

Property Must Be:

• Pet Friendly

Property Can’t:

• N/A

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IN CLOSING

Traveling with both a Sig-other and dogs can be a horrible, denigrating experience that cannot be cured with therapy or drugs. Or so your Sig-other will try to convince you. Over and over. Yet I’ve found drugs and scented candles cure extremely well. Much better than therapy. Over and over.

And over.

Anyway, please join us in our fight to make short-term rentals transparent with the use of thousands upon thousands of mandatory filters that will choke the industry dry.

Frivolous lawsuits will also help!!!