H O W A R D S B E N D

The raging pandemic persists.  We receive constant reminders from the news that the “worst is still to come”.  We are told to stay home, if at all possible.  Flying has become taboo, as no one wants to breath re-cycled air for five hours.  People are scared to venture too far from home and do not want to put themselves in compromising situations.  Foreign travel is banned.  I have always loved vacations and particularly traveling an so I have tried to design several vacations that are safe during the pandemic and not that difficult to make happen.  No passport is required.

We always loved visiting Jamaican with the combination of the sun, the beach, the food and the local culture.  I have designed the “Jamaican Getaway for right in your own home.  First turn-up the thermostat in your home to 94 degrees during the day and then lower it to 85 degrees for the evenings.  Tune Pandora to the Bob Marley station and make sure it blasts loudly through out the house.  Place several tanning lights around the house to bring in the Caribbean sun while also re-creating that fear of contracting skin cancer while enjoying your vacation in the sun.  Make sure there is plenty of rum in the house, must have both white rum and brown rum and make sure you have plenty of pineapples, strawberries and oranges for those rum runners.  Fire up the BBQ and get the spices for the local favorite jerk chicken for lunch.  Don’t be shy about having it for both lunch and dinner.  And finally, when talking to each other, finish each sentence with “mon”.  

If you have recently been to Jamaica try a  Mexican vacation.  Please use the same thermostat settings as in the previous section.  Turn the cable to the Telemundo and get an app to learn the Spanish language so that you will be able to ask your family members in Spanish for another Corona or where the bathroom is located.  Go out and buy a piñata and drink plenty of Tequila.  Create a celebration in order to smash that piñata to smithereens.  Invite your landscaping crew over(even though it is still January)  for an afternoon of Margaritas and tacos.  For those who want to add to the cultural experience, take a ride to Home Depot at 6:00 AM and enjoy you compatriots in their manual, underpaid jobs.  Put Taco Bell and Chipotle on the speed dial as you will need plenty of authentic Mexican foods.  For those that do not want to cross the border and venture into Mexico, but still love that Southwest/Mexican culture how about a vacation to that great state of Texas?  The guidelines for this trip are very close to the Mexican trip outlined above.  I would just play country music very loud on the stereo and maybe substitute chili dogs and some BBQ ribs for the Mexican meals.  Just yell “Remember the Alamo” and “Go Longhorns” several times a day.

How about a simple camping trip without the need to drive hours to a remote campsite in the mountains only to share bathroom and commissary with potentially infected strangers.  Just pitch the tent right in the backyard.  No need to scour through the neighborhood for wood for the campsite, just roll the BBQ grill from the patio to the backyard.  Don’t worry about forgetting to pack the catchup or mustard for those grilled hot dogs and hamburgers, they are both right there in the kitchen. Need a scary campfire story.  Bring the I-PAD and turn on “Scream” or “Saw” both of which are guaranteed to keep the little ones up way past their bedtime.   Enjoy your night under the stars and if not, you can always head back to the house and your comfortable king-sized bed..

Las Vegas has become the quick get-away for many of us.  Now we can experience Las Vegas right in our own homes.  First pull down all the shades and blinds so the house is completely dark and turn the air conditioning to 62 degrees to simulate the casino atmosphere.  Pour your favorite drink and make sure to add plenty of water re-create that water-downed casino cocktail.  Then, go to your favorite betting website and gamble away – black jack, roulette, poker craps are all available on this website.  At 10:00 PM, take a break from gambling and turn on an old Wayne Newton tape one night, or watch an old David Copperfield video the next night, or find an old Elvis video of The King on the Strip.  Make sure to return to gambling and stay until 4:00 AM.  Don’t forget that everyone is a winner.

How about a European Wine Tour?  This is one of my favorite pandemic vacations.  Start with joining one of the many online wine clubs.  These wines are generally delicious and very reasonably priced.  Begin your tour by ordering Greek wines to be delivered on Monday.  Find the appropriate foods to go with your particular country wine.  For Greece you can have Greek salads, moussaka, lamb in grape leaves all complemented by your favorite Greek wines.  On Tuesday, have the wines from Italy delivered and have spaghetti, lasagna, or veal cacciatore ready to go with your Italian wines.  Finish the week with wines from France, Spain and Portugal again plan the appropriate meals from the particular country where the wine originated from.  You can return to the USA  for some good California wines a fabulous Omaha steak and and Idaho baked pot

For the more adventurous traveler, I might suggest a tour of the Far East.  Start the week off with a visit to your local Buddhist Temple.  Spend some peaceful moments cleansing the soul and striving toward perfection.  I suggest sushi for lunch after the visit to the temple.  The next day, go to your local China Town and try hanging out at a local Asia supermarket market.  You will be able to spend hours trying to figure out what are these different monstrosities and asking yourself  how do people really eat them.  If you still have an appetitive after the supermarket, try some Chinese food.  Have some shark fin soup and Peking duck.  The next day watch “Crazy Rich Asians and then head to the mall for a quick massage – only a dollar per minute for a excellent massage.  Have some Thai cuisine for dinner.  Dig out that Slum Dog Millionaire DVD and let’s tour India.  Of course, finish off the day with a samosa and chicken tikka marsala with coconut custard for dessert, or the real desert might be flipping through the Kama Sutra with a very close and limber partner.

For those that lack the imagination and energy to plan and organize your own “pandemic” vacation, there is always the virtual tour.  There is virtual reality system from Oculus for only $299.  For the cost of one fine meal (with a somewhat heavy bar tab), you can tour the ancient pyramids in Egypt, scuba dive at the Great Barrier Reef, tour of the Louvre or go on an African safari right from the couch your living room.  Buckle up and enjoy.

1. Absolute Trump – Enjoy a new brand of vodka made in the style of traditional Russia vodka.  This is the vodka favored by the most rich and powerful oligarchs. This high quality and expensively tasting vodka can be secured at a price that a deeply devalued ruble makes very affordable.  Absolute Trump goes perfectly with Trump Caviar which can be purchased at most of your favorite supermarkets. 

2. Opti Tax Con – Do you owe the IRS  millions of dollars?  Do you resent the IRS asking to see your current tax return?  Are you receiving harassing phone calls threatening to repossess your yachts or vacation homes.  Stop worrying.  Call Opti Tax Con and let us handle your disputes with the IRS.  Let us set up bogus foundations which will generate millions of dollars of tax deductions while letting you enjoy the fruits of your hard earned passive income.  Let us set up off-shore tax havens that will let you hide millions and millions of dollars giving you and your family a way to avoid those annoying inheritance taxes.   Why pay any taxes when ex-presidents worth billions of dollars pay only $750 annually in taxes?  We can help you. 

3. Trump Light – Try our new brand of cigarettes that deliver a full body taste with less tar and nicotine than the average cigarette.  Have a Trump Light before a siege on a federal building or enjoy a Trump Light while relaxing and counting casualties after the armed insurrection.  Trump Light is the preferred smoke of MAGA Nation.  Do not believe the Fake News about cigarette smoking being bad for your health.  In fact, the Surgeon  General’s warning has been removed from the carton.  And the idea about getting ill from secondary smoke is again totally false and just as silly as getting Covid from a drinking buddy.  Enjoy the freedom of a good smoke.

4. Trumps Not Nice and Not Easy – Want to open a few doors to you in the corporate world?  Want to get ahead in the Republican Party?  Try Trump’s “Not Nice and Not Easy” which is a new hair coloring product which is so easy to use that even our ex-President could color his own hair almost by himself.  The company is currently offers a single color, a rusty shade of orange which is the only color you need.  With a regular application, you can look like a not-too-distant relative of our former president and visit Mar a Lago without even needing a visitor pas

5. Ashley and Trump Madison – Been married several times and yet still restless and unsatisfied.  Looking for a discrete rendezvous with a woman who can provide the excitement and the pleasure for which you are secretly yearning.  Do you need a little change of scenery from your pregnant wife.  Visit our new updated website, www.ashleyandtrumpmadison.com (Links to an external site.).  We also provide legal services to those that are being sued or blackmailed by their current spouse.  We are now offering a new service that matches those clients that are seeking beautiful trophy wives from Slovakia.  (All ur women are tested regularly for STDs, although we do not test for Covid). 

6. Don’s Tiki Torches -Going to a white supremacist march and need a tiki torch that will last for hours and not flitter-out while swinging it at the ANTIFA  counter-protestors?  Try Don’s Tiki Torchs which are guaranteed to last throughout those long marches through the streets of Southern towns and is built with extra strength to withstand hand-to-hand combat.  Available in two sizes.

7. Chernobyl Trump Tower – Looking for a change to your current life situation…maybe a new luxury apartment in a new city or maybe just a second home to add some charge yo your life.  Or maybe, you are looking for an investment in real estate that guarantees a high return on your investment.  Contact us immediately about purchasing a new luxury condo in the Chernobyl Trump Tower.  Get in on the ground floor as Chernobyl goes through its re-gentrification and reap the rewards of being an early investor.  The newest Trump tower radiates high class living.

8. Trumpquoroquine –  This is the drug that saved the life of our 45th president and it can also save your life.  Ask your doctor for a prescription to the panacea of so many ailments, and if he/she refuses just contact the world-famous Dr. Stella Immanuel who has been at the forefront in research on the beneficial results of hydroxychloroquine.  Get a prescription right away because this drug is selling like hotcakes.  Keep that prescription bottle in your medicine cabinet for that rainy day.

9. Trump Lie detector –  This machine is a beautiful invention as it can tell fact from fiction.  This new machine will help so many defendants who have been accused of lying.   This is the lie detector that is being used by more and more police departments and law enforcement agencies.  The machine first asks if you are a Democrat or a Republican.  It can from there determine who is telling the truth and who is lying.  We would like to demonstrate the effectiveness our our new machine by asking Hunter Biden a few questions on his involvement with Burisma. 

10.  Trump College (not to be confused with Trump University) – This is a college offering studies in Eastern European culture, history and languages. The primary focus on the program is the Russian nations with offerings in the Russia language.  We offer Russian 1, Russian 2, Russian 3, Russian 4 and advanced language of Russian 5.  We also offer a course on the biography of Vladimir Putin and another course on the the Positive Contribution of Vladimir Putin to the political and economic rise of the Russian Nation.  We have one elective which is called Truth and Fallacy about Catharine the Great.  This course work is ideal for those seeking a mid-level bureaucratic position in the State Department.