Leaving home doesn’t make all your problems go away . . .

This guy was driving too slow

In Paul Epps’s America, the area between Barstow and Vegas would be patrolled by military-style helicopters and any vehicle being passed on the right would be taken out by a well-placed missile.

“Wouldn’t that make things even slower?” my son asks.

“Initially, it might. But think about the deterrent effect. I think you’d find that in a very short time, slower drivers would stay in the right-hand lane where they belong. Good question though. You ask a lot of great questions.”

• Lamp
• Clock radio
• Extra pair of reading glasses
• Business cards, mostly my own
• 1 pen, 2 pencils
• Post-Its
• Vaccination record
• Schedule of classes for LA Fitness
• Two or three dollars in change
• Nine dollars in Candian coins
• 440 Indian rupees

Even in an entire city full of motorists honking at one another, our driver this afternoon distinguished himself as the greatest horn blower since Horatio.

We were stopped in traffic at red lights, and he’d still sound the horn a couple of times just to stay limbered up . . .

The cab drivers here are either highly motivated to get you to your destination or completely insane. Or possibly both.

“Roads” and “lanes” aren’t well-defined. A lane is any relatively flat piece of ground, paved or unpaved, that you can take possession of and defend with headlight flashing, horn honking and aggressive refusal to yield.

Thoughts I’ve had more than once:

1. Is this part of the road?
2. Isn’t that a sidewalk?

I’m spending a couple of weeks in Bangalore at the end of the month. Travel is the most depressing thing in the world, beating out listening to other people talk about their travels.

Bangalore has been called the Silicon Valley of Asia. It’s like the Silicon Valley here in California, but with monkeys and malaria.

My boss has cautioned me to drink only the bottled water from the hotel, never the bottled water at the office.

“They refill the bottles at the office with their own water,” he said. “The hotel will give you two bottles a day, but I tipped the staff a dollar a day and they left extra bottles in my room. That’s a lot of money over there.”

I’m seriously thinking about tipping two dollars a day just to see what the heck happens . . .

My bizness is taking me to Bangalore, India, at the end of the month. I got vaccinated for hepatitis A, hepatitis B, polio, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis.

I’m now immune to everything, including your consultations.

“Where are you folks from?” the border agent asks.

“Irvine, California.”

“How long were you in Canada?”

“About half a day.”

“Why such a short stay?”

“We’re staying in Seattle for a few days and just came up for a visit.”

“How do you like this cold weather?”

“No big deal. I grew up in cold weather.”

My son makes a sputtering noise in the back seat.

“Is he okay?” the agent asks.

“Well, unfortunately he’s got irreversible brain damage to his frontal lobes. We still love him though.”

“Is anyone in the car carrying $10,000 or more in cash?”

“American dollars or Canadian?”

“American.”

“I wish.”

“Is that a yes or a no, sir?”

“Sorry. No.”

After we pass through the border check, the boy says in a mocking tone, “‘I grew up in cold weather.’ In La Mirada.”

“La Mirada is subject to extreme temperature fluctations,” I reply. “Much more so than Irvine.”

Fun at border crossings: Have one person in the car hold their breath and pretend to be dead. See if the attendant asks any questions.

— Paul Epps (@paulepps) June 18, 2012

As we’re touring the gardens at Hearst Castle, my wife points out a plant that’s just like one we have at home.

“Yeah, this place a has a lot of similarities to our house,” I say. “We have a plant, we have a pool . . .”

“We don’t have a pool,” the boy says.

“Well, we have access to a pool.”

LA to Houston

We’re waiting at LAX for a flight to Houston when a large black man in his 20s sits down near us in the waiting area.

“I could take that guy one-on-one,” my kid announces.

I’m about to mention to him that not every big black dude is necessarily a basketball player when he says, “Wait a minute, isn’t that Mario Williams?”

I have to admit to him that I wouldn’t recognize Mario Williams if I saw him.

He pulls up a photo of Mario Williams on his iPhone. “Yeah,” I say, “that does look like him.”

“And he’s waiting for a flight to Houston? That’s got to be Mario Williams.”

The final clue is that the guy is decked out in Adidas gear from head to toe. A Google search for “mario williams adidas” on the iPhone reveals that Mario Williams has a sponsorship deal with Adidas.

So we’re pretty sure we saw Mario Williams at the airport.

Houston to Florida

Continental changed up the seat assignments . . . the boy ends up in Row 8 while I’m back in Row 26.

“I’m way ahead of you,” he says. “I can pick up the rental car and drive to the hotel before you even get off the plane.”

The boys arrived back from their graduation trip, but missed their connecting flight in Philly, which seems to be the rule rather than the exception for U.S. Airways.

They were able to get on a later flight — to Los Angeles though, not Orange County — so the parents drove out to pick them up at LAX at 11:45 p.m.

“We should sue the airline,” one of the moms said.

“That’s a good idea,” I replied, not because I thought it was a good idea, but because I wanted to hear the plan.

“Five sets of parents have to drive all the way to Los Angeles,” she said. “Gas is expensive! Then there’s punitive damages. Frustration. Loss of income.”

“How is there a loss of income?”

“Some parents might have to work at night. You don’t know.”

“How much do you think we should get — a million dollars?”

“No,” she scoffed, like I was being ridiculous. “Two hundred thousand.”

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