title: Last-Minute Travel Secrets: 121 Ingenious Tips to Endure Cramped Planes, Car Trouble, Awful Hotels, and Other Trips from Hell
author:  Joey Green 
description: <span>"</span><span>Pragmatic-minded Joey Green has written plenty of books -- more than 50 of them in fact -- and has traveled many a mile . . . . He's certainly a resourceful fellow, as this very useful book proves. . .</span><span>Virtually every page is full of handy advice." <i>--The Chicago Tribune</i></span><br /><br />"<i>Last-Minute Travel Secrets</i> falls squarely in the category of life hacks, those clever ideas that make aspects of daily living easier.Green's book is entertaining and informative, even if you aren't inclined to try one of his favorite ideas: making a sleep mask from maxi pads." --<i>Columbus Dispatch</i><br /><br />"Road warriors often boast about the well-honed, insider tools they use to make the best of long hours spent in airports, on airplanes, in hotels and out on the road. But even the most seasoned traveler might learn a few new hacks from Joey Green's new book,<i>Last-Minute Travel Secrets</i>." <i>--USA Today</i><br /><br /><span>"Quirky tips that straddle the line between absurd and ingenious, all proven to work in a pinch." --<i>Washington Post</i></span><br /><br />"Even if you don't put many of the humorist's ideas to use (and why not?), your journey will be lightened by the guffaws you get from (lavishly illustrated) tips such as "How to fashion a Sleep Mask from Maxi Pads" or "How to Cook Hotdogs in a Coffeemaker." --<i>Seattle Times</i>
zlib_text: ### One
  
  
  
  
  
  Flight decks are traumatic places. Memory storages impregnated with sweat,
  fear, boredom and stress. Somewhere in there, traces of pleasure,
  satisfaction: nostalgic echoes of vast starry nights like inverted Broadways,
  snowy peaks jutting through cloud floors in brilliant sunlight, tropical
  sunsets from a Gauguin canvas. Indescribable things which compensate,
  ephemerally, for the cruel hours of tense concentration.
  
  
  
  
  
  Most big jet crews get the hell out almost before the main wheels stop
  rolling—you could get trampled in the rush, I guess. Assuming, of course, they
  have somewhere to go, someone to be with, money to spend. Which accounted for
  my sitting here alone in a silent Delta Tango, staring out at a wet, dimly lit
  expanse of Kennedy Airport. I blew it on all three counts: nowhere to go, no
  one to go with—and money was a sick joke in New York, this late October of
  1985.
  
  
  
  
  
  The log lay completed on my lap. I lit a Split, dimmed down the lights a
  shade. Down back som