'The Odyssey' is the mother of bad-trip tales. Why are we obsessed with travel disasters?

Lost luggage? Tarmac delays? Rental-car blues? No whining astir measly question headaches with the parent of each bad-trip sagas looming connected the large screen.

“The Odyssey,” Christopher Nolan’s epic instrumentality connected the Trojan War’s fallout, debuts July 17. Spoiler alert, if you someway avoided Homer successful assemblage college: Nobody, prevention biblical Job, has had much misery hurled astatine them.

Outflanked by cruel and fickle gods astatine each turn, legendary Greek leader Odysseus outsmarted a one-eyed giant, suffered done the bewitching Sirens’ opus and braved the Underworld’s dormant denizens. He battled oversize cannibals, outmaneuvered a witch and mislaid scores of men astatine each turn. Then made it backmost to Ithaca aft 10 years lone to find his location overrun by suitors wooing his wife.

It’s a communicative packed with atrocious decisions, failure, heartbreak and death. Perfect communicative fodder, fixed however overmuch we emotion bad-trip stories. We devour lists of the worst airports and wonderment astatine accounts of illness-plagued cruises. We scroll done videos starring unruly passengers oregon mangled bags, and work astir the past resting spot for mislaid luggage.

Hollywood has created a full franchise astir roadworthy trips gone wrong. Think of “The Hangover” oregon “Sideways” oregon “Little Miss Sunshine.” Screenwriter-director John Hughes perfected the big-screen comedic attraction of question gone southbound with classics specified arsenic “Home Alone,” “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and “Planes, Trains and Automobiles.”

Let’s not adjacent speech astir the “three-hour tour” that near Gilligan and friends stranded connected a deserted land for 98 episodes, oregon however Jack Dawson’s voyage ended aboard 1997’s “Titanic.”

A important assemblage of grounds adjacent indicates that question makes america sick. Trip-related problems are truthful common, successful fact, that user advocator Christopher Elliott has stitched an full vocation retired of resolving them — from timeshare scams to horrible hose lawsuit work and beyond.

Still, we support buying tickets and packing our bags to sail into the large unknown, crossed Homer’s wine-dark sea. Why? Elliott attributes it to what helium presumption “traveler’s amnesia.”

“It amazes maine that travelers are not up successful arms astir the mode they get treated,” helium said. “They instrumentality a trip, person a unspeakable experience, and hide astir everything that went incorrect and lone retrieve what went right.”

He suggests that avoiding a atrocious travel starts with choosing companies noted for beardown lawsuit service. He cited immoderate name-brand examples: Marriott for hotels, Alaska Airlines, and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He avoids cruises arsenic overmuch arsenic possible.

Which is funny, due to the fact that erstwhile I deliberation astir cruising, I don’t revisit the miserable 36 hours that norovirus confined america successful our cabin. I alternatively callback coasting past a flotilla of icebergs successful Alaska’s Glacier Bay.

When I deliberation astir Mexico, I don’t wallow successful memories involving Montezuma and his gastrointestinal revenge. But I bash cherish thoughts of snorkeling with playful oversea lion pups.

And erstwhile I see airports, I blot the representation of the pistillate adjacent to maine astatine Gate 66 who insists connected blaring a video telephone astatine maximum volume. Instead, wielding my noise-canceling earbuds, Odysseus-like, I program to smother this screeching dependable to sphere my sanity. But earlier I tin insert them, a dependable speaks to me.

To each of us, to beryllium technically correct, since it emanates from the speakers of Los Angeles International Airport’s Terminal 6.

“It’s clip to play TSA’s favourite game!” says the voice, mimicking a game-show host’s hustle. “You mislaid it, we recovered it!”

The talker explained that idiosyncratic had near a laptop machine astatine a checkpoint. The 2 were reunited moments later, which acceptable my feet successful motion, wondering whose dependable it was. There astatine the checkpoint I met Carl Revis, a TSA supervisory serviceman with a penchant for comedy.

“You don’t person to beryllium a jerk to get things done,” helium told me. “I deliberation reaching radical done drama is simply a batch easier than screaming and yelling astatine them.”

Taken together, my travel recollections astir apt suffice maine arsenic surviving impervious of Elliott’s traveler’s amnesia theory. The last diagnosis should beryllium wide soon. I’m retiring from full-time enactment this year, and radical inevitably inquire what’s next.

It’s not wholly clear, I archer them. But I’ll decidedly person much clip to travel. Maybe sail crossed the Aegean … what could spell wrong?