I hate flying, especially in steerage. Take my recent flight. You might as well, everyone else did.
I have a bad aversion to flying. I’m not afraid of flying, it’s just that when I’m tired and think of taking a long flight, I seem to get transported to another world—which isn’t exactly pretty. Last time I dozed off my snoozing soul was plunked down in Rome—in the Roman era no less. Evidently it was my turn to clean the vomitorium and all they gave me was one of those little espresso spoons.
That nightmare pretty much tells you all you need to know about how much I enjoy the cramped, airless hell called “economy” class.
SF to Frankfurt. Flight full to the brim. An orchestra from eastern Europe graces us with its presence. Overhead bins are stuffed with bassoons and such. Where is this tourism slowdown I read about? Is there enough air in here? I feel light-headed. Then my mind takes a left turn…
Who plays these things, these bassoons? I sometimes think it’s all part of an “enlightened” education plot, a remnant of socialism that has been slipstreamed into modern, newly-formed democracies. You know the drill, at age six you take a battery of tests to determine your future and then your parents wait a month or so for the results. They come back:
After careful analysis of his physique and his mental accomplishments, the Esteemed Council on Suitable Employment (ECSE) has found that E. Boshtovich Jr. is ideally suited to hefting a bassoon into the overhead compartment of a widebody jet taking long flights to international destinations.
Then, after say 16 years of state-sponsored bassoon lessons, the easy part of the socialist plot, Boshtovich finds himself in steerage, his big instrument filling the bin above his head. Other passengers sneer at him, lusting after his bin space, but he has hefted his state-owned bassoon decisively and well. Jealous, grumbling passengers now are left to cram their crap under their seats, taking up the last of their allotted foot room with enormous bags, probably filled with shoes, a pair for every occasion. Check them in? Are you kidding?
Bin space, when you come to think of it, is another free market. Short supply, great demand. Corporate voyeurs never tire of it: survival of the fittest; dog eat dog. It’s good entertainment when you’re not in the middle of it.
There are those who argue (quite a bit too vociferously for my taste) that America’s top- and bottom-heavy “free market” is light years better than social equality, or even bin-al equality. What with all the choices we have, one can hardly argue that the American “free” market isn’t the best of all possible worlds. Yes, we have choices. We don’t have to heft the bassoon or play Wagner.
Still, it’s odd, isn’t it, how many free Americans choose to spend the active parts of their lives spackling industrial rounds of mystery meat with “secret sauce” for far less than a living wage. (Even more amazing are the numbers of people who’d consider putting the results in their mouths, but that’s another story.) The point is this: considering they chose their occupation in a perfect world, one figures the burger bungling bunch are enjoying life and will continue to do so ad nauseam.
But hey, that’s when your name comes up for cleaning the vomitorium.
Happy flying.