I have a dark confession to make: Even though I write a weekly column for an internationally read publication, until recently, I'd never even owned a passport. "But Gladstone," you say. "How is that possible when you're such a smooth and sophisticated man of the world?" I'll admit, it's puzzling, but the United States is not like Europe. Going to other countries here requires plane fare, and I didn't grow up with a lot of cash. By the time I had money, I had small children, and I wasn't going to have some European vacation dictated by infants.

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"First we go to Prague!"

But a few weeks ago, an old friend of mine got married in Edmonton, Canada, and at the exact same time, I was invited to appear at the Edmonton Comic & Entertainment Expo. It was like a perfect storm calling me to a foreign land. (Shut up! It was a six-hour plane ride and it required a passport, so it counts!!!) I decided to take off to this exotic destination, but there was a problem. I was too old to be having this first experience -- much like Cracked's Soren Bowie, who had to ask a girl out for the first time at 27. (Before that, he'd relied on his now fading boyish good looks to get spontaneously molested by passing women.)