The summer is upon us, and that means one thing: bikini-induced skin cancer. Well, that and road trips, which is what we’re going to talk about.

For those of you that don’t know, a road trip is when you load up all of your earthly effects into a motorized vehicle and then use said motorized vehicle to transport yourself and cargo from your current location to a destination of your choice, such as another country with a non-extradition policy and more lenient pharmaceutical laws.

But James, you say, I’ve never done a road trip before, how do I know what to do?  Well, fear not, I’m here to walk you through every step of the process.

First off, decide whether or not you’re going to take passengers on this voyage.  There are a lot of pros and cons to consider here. On the one hand, passengers can help with things like taking turns driving, keeping you awake or quadrupling the number of obscene hand gestures you can display to other motorists. On the other hand, they have an annoying tendency to have to use the bathroom every 5.7 seconds, but more on this later.

Anyhow, once you have selected your traveling companions, the next step is to load the car with tons of useless junk. Cardboard boxes full of your passengers’ belongings work quite well. Be sure to arrange sharp edges so that they occupy the same space as tender areas of the driver’s anatomy. Among all this useless junk, I recommend you take the following: one fully functioning public restroom with indoor plumbing and no less than seven spare tires.

I say this because of an interesting experience I had during my field studies.  Let us look at this completely unaltered transcript:

Me: Boy, I sure do love driving through rural Tennessee for seven hours straight!
Tire: Really? You know what’s even better? Walking through rural Tennessee.
Me: What?
Tire: Kerthlumpaloompapopopothereeeeeekhiiiiiiissssssss.

This is where the seven spare tires come in handy. You stack them in a pile and then light them on fire. The smoke should attract rescuers in five to six days, far quicker than it would take for your cell phone to find a signal. While you’re waiting for the National Guard to swoop in, you’ll also be glad that you packed that fully functioning public restroom. Just look at this case study:

While I was busy doing manly things like reading the user’s manual, and trying to remember where the wheels were located (useful tip: they’re the round things on the bottom), one of the passengers who, in the interest of not getting shanked in my sleep, will be referred to only as Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders, decided that it was a good time to have to use the bathroom.

Well, as it turns out, closed gas stations lock their bathrooms, and locked bathrooms are a little hard to use, so Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders attempted take care of business in an alternate location. Unfortunately, this alternate location turned out to be not nearly as out of sight as Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders had initially thought. In fact, it could not have been more visible if there had been spotlights and neon signs pointing in its direction.

“That’s a very visible business,” I noted.
“Yeah,” said Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders, “I kind of realize that now that I’m done.”
“Perhaps we should relocate it, you know, for the sake of people that want to use that door.”

While we had forgotten to pack a fully functioning public restroom, we did have approximately 7.5 million Taco Bell napkins in the glove box, all of which were used in this delicate procedure. As Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders was in the middle of transferring said business, I happened to notice something: the world’s largest, hairiest spider. It was located on Sibling Who is Deathly Afraid of Spiders’ elbow. After a moment of hesitation, I decided to point this fact out.

To make a long story short, the business was relocated to several different new locations, some of which were less visible that its original resting place.
Well, as I’m sure you’ve realized from studying this field research, the final step to any road trip is as follows: stay home.