I’ve just flown from Frankfurt to San Francisco. (Yes, my arms are very, very tired.)
Something got me to wondering though. Hear me out on this. The seats in steerage suck, airplane food sucks and can be deadly, the kid in front of you doesn’t suck, he screams and drools, usually over the back of his seat and, by golly, that drool stream is guaranteed to head toward you and your expensive seersucker a good 99% of the time. And you’re going to be on that plane an interminable 11 hours.
So why in heaven’s name do people at airports pop up like weasels when boarding is announced and immediately rush to join the crush to be one of the first 200 to get wedged into that uncomfortable, reserved seat? Is there a prize for this I missed hearing about? Sure, there are a few people dragging carry-on bags they can’t lift an inch off the ground no matter how hard they try who just have to get on the plane first so that everyone can stand behind them while they try fruitlessly to clean and jerk 200 pounds of crap into the overhead bin. I understand that. People are idiots. I learned that in kindergarten.
So I figure if you want to have people rush to do something completely idiotic, charge them a grand or so (that’s $1000 for you foreigners) then stand back and watch the fun.
Say you wanted to do a video of 500 people jumping into a cesspool full of hungry alligators. You put out signs on the highway saying, “have lots of fun jumping into our rancid and malodorous lake full of deadly lizards!”
How much you bet you won’t get any takers?
Ok, now, you tell people to bring some luggage too big for them to carry, you put overhead bins above your cesspool, you charge people a grand or two while telling them they’re getting a HUGE discount over other cesspools with lesser lizards and WHAM!
Sit back, pop an Ichnusa (my favorite Sardinian beer), sip, and watch ‘em all jump in the muck with their duffels held fruitlessly aloft. That’d be fun, eh?
Oh, and bring a lawn chair. The process takes a while.