The World is My Whatever is an Alternative to an Oyster

What countries do you want to visit?

There are countries and cities I have been to and plenty more that I haven’t visited yet, so where would I go next? How does the saying go? The world is my oyster.

We interrupt this broadcast for a tangential message from my drifting brain

Speaking of oysters, why do they call the world an oyster? Let’s unpack that idiom because it’s about as nonsensical as it gets. Shakespeare’s got some explaining to do…

Was it because there is an eastern and a western hemisphere and an oyster has two shells? Does that make humanity the mushy stuff in the middle? I thought that it didn’t really make sense. Historically, we weren’t cracking it open to get inside, since we would die, because lava and the Kaiju living under the crust in a gateway to another dimension.

But wait, there’s more

But then I got to thinking about fracking, and how we are forcing open fissures in the earth’s crust through artificial means to crack it open, so-to-speak, to get to the stuff in the middle. Kind of like that tootsie roll owl. The oil and gas are the candy in the middle. Maybe Shakespeare was onto something.

The problem with that imagery is that I don’t do oysters, clams, mussels, etc. If it has a shell that has to be pried open, I’d just leave it alone. I don’t see the appeal. Cooked or raw, oysters get a hard pass. Blech.

Back to our regularly scheduled program already in progress

Back to the world at large and all the countries left to visit. Where do I still want to go? What countries are on my bucket list? Listed below in no particular order:

• Australia
• India
• Iceland
• Ireland
• Greece
• Brazil
• Chile

If I could only pick one country from that list, I am going to go to the one farthest away, which would be Australia. I have known a few people who have lived in Australia and ended up coming back to the United States for one reason or another. It seems familiar, yet almost wildly dangerous. Which I think is the appeal. That and living out my Furiousa Mad Max fantasy lol.

wishful thinking

I think I read somewhere that when people win the lottery, what causes them to spiral out of control is that they didn’t have a plan for the windfall, which leaves them open to influence by friends, families, and scam artists. I haven’t gotten to a place mentally where I am prioritizing travel, yet. Therefore any thoughts of going anywhere are just dreams and wishful thinking.

There was a time in my life when I would make elaborate plans to travel that would end up going nowhere because it is impossible to plan something with unwilling participants who go out of their way to sabotage everything. All that wasted effort has left me a bit jaded. Not gonna lie, it feels like a lot of effort now to even make the trip to the grocery store.

Perhaps this is a byproduct of the pandemic and the lockdown? Maybe I got really comfortable being at home. But there is a big wide world out there spinning. It might not be a juicy oyster waiting to be cracked open, but it’s something worth looking into.