It’s that time again. Time for another post. For another Rory PostTM – for more of the SAME OLD CRAP that I’ve been writing for several years now, and which, beyond my comprehension, just grows in popularity. Oh, yeah. That’s right. My blog is popular. You read it. Your friends read it. Your mamma reads it. Why? I can’t figure it out. It’s just crap. So I guess you like crap.
Anyway, I’m writing to you now from the comfort of my six inch wide coach class seat on a 757–300 that’s currently cruising at an altitude of 31,000 feet. We’re headed for Boston, and it’s my understanding that the landing should be interesting given that visibility is down to about a quarter of a mile thanks to fog. We just spent half an hour sitting on the tarmac in St. Paul, doing absolutely nothing, waiting for clearance to take off.
Oh, hey – do I sound bitter? Do I?
WELL THAT’S ‘CAUSE I AM. GAWD. GET OUT OF MY FACE.
Just after landing in St. Paul, we experienced a delay of another sort. Half the airport was shut down because a governmental “VIP” was being escorted to a C-5 that was to transport him to who-knows-where. The Stargate SG-1 dork in me would like to think that it was an alien delegate being taken to Area 51 to continue discussions of peace between our world and theirs, but it was probably just some wanktard senator or something who needed the C-5 so that he could drive his Hummer up the back and park it where the tanks usually go.
YEAH. THAT’S RIGHT, BIZNITCHES. I’M FEELING A MIGHT BIT AGITATED THIS AFTERNOON.
It wasn’t all that bad, though. I mean, there were the delays and the bad weather, and the recycled air, and the constipation that’s caused by sitting in a seat for eight hours at a time without moving, and the taste of airline salty MSG-laden nuts, of which they give you so few that the best you can do to make them last, rather than chewing, is roll them around in your mouth and suck on them for a little while, savoring the salty nutness. It’s like one of Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gobstoppers, except that it sucks, and it’s not even remotely everlasting. God, I wish I had an attendee here that I could punch.
But, like I said, it hasn’t been that bad. The truth is that I’ve seen proof all day long that, rather than moving in a direction contrary to the advancement of all humankind, it seems to me that people are actually getting smarter.
Like with the airline check-in process.
When I was a kid, which was practically last week, and before I had a chest hair (no - that’s not a typo – I only have one, and I keep plucking it, but then it comes back, and I’m thinking about having my chest removed because I’m sick of it), the boarding process of airplanes was completely different.
Oh, hey. The airline attendant is offering “snack boxes of trail mix for $3.” HEY, AIRLINE ATTENDANT – YOU CAN SUCK IT. Yeah – take that to the bank, and then PUT IT IN YOUR PIPE AND SMOKE IT, YOU TRAIL MIX RIP-OFF ARTIST. Good thing I brought a bunch of my own snack bars, or else I’d be getting money-raped by these jerkdicks with their overpriced “snack boxes” full of assfood.
So, like I was saying, things used to be different when I was younger.
“How?” I hear you ask.
Let me tell you how.
The Boarding Announcement – Stupid Old School Way
Do you see the problem with this? If you don’t, then allow me to suggest that you might have lesions on your left frontal lobe which are interfering with your ability to reason and logicalize (yeah – I made that word up – but what are you gonna do about it? JACK-SHIT - that’s what).
This way is slow and stupid because it confuses people.
Observe:
Do those look like happy people to you? Yeah, me neither. They’re obviously confused and have no idea what to do next. Thank GOD we changed the system.
The Boarding Announcement – New Sexy Way
Obviously, most of the major airlines have been paid some visits by highly paid efficiency experts, and the results speak for themselves.
Instead of doing this stupid let’s-get-everybody-inside-in-a-sequential-and-orderly-fashion method, it seems there’s been a major push to what I call “The Fire Drill” which is an accurate recreation of how people would truly behave if there were a fire.
The bonus to this method is that it makes much more sense to customers:
See? They just get it. They’re ready to go, like Jenna Jameson after consuming large amounts of powdered rhinoceros horn, which is a well known aphrodisiac in certain parts of the world where people believe incredibly stupid things and have little, if any, understanding of cause and effect.
But let’s check out the results of these two systems in action.
The Boarding Process – Stupid Old School Way
Oh, YAWN. Like, welcome to the CITY OF BORING WAYS TO ENTER AIRPLANES.
In this scenario, customers get on the plane one at a time, and in order according to row number, allowing for a simple, fluid system that gets everybody on board in a low-stress way.
The problem? HELLO: Single-file. As anybody who has ever tried to get on or off the Paris metro during the Parisian rush hour knows, there’s absolutely nothing to be gained from trying to do things in an orderly fashion. And look at how powerful the French are. Is there a connection between their mad inability to queue and their current QUEST FOR WORLD DOMINATION? Very likely, I think. And look at how well they’re doing.
That’s where innovation comes in (and may I take a break here to send out a big thanks to the EFFICIENCY EXPERTS OF THE WORLD – it must be an amazing feeling knowing that you can still perform all of your job duties with your head lodged so far up your ass that it actually winds up popped up out again on top of your shoulders as though it was never up your ass in the first place. Assholes.)
The Boarding Process – New Sexy Way
Need I say anything?
This is the beautiful and speedy system we see kick into place today as soon as an airline representative speaks the magic words: “Now boarding all passengers, all rows.”
What’s great about this is that everybody tries to shove through the door at the same time, sort of like people racing for the front row at a Twisted Sister concert. When they get there, though, they all kind of get stuck together, and then they start to sweat, and then they get stuck to each other in the People Cluster, and then diseases are transmitted, and then, five minutes later, EVERYBODY HAS THE AVIAN FLU.
But this is clearly still better because all that single-file crap was obviously leading nowhere, except perhaps on-time departures.
Also note the straggler at the bottom. There’s usually a few of these, and it’s your job as part of the People Cluster to look down upon stragglers with disdain. They’ll probably be looking at their tickets, trying to figure out if it’s actually time to board or if someone inside the airplane just turned on a SUPER HIGH POWERED MAGNET that sucked all the people wearing metal toward the door at the same time (hint to the stragglers: it’s time to board, you amateurs – get with the program).
Overall, I think the beauty of this system is indisputable. It tells a tale of human engineering at its greatest.
Plus, there’s nothing quite like shoving a ninety year-old woman out of the way just so you can get to seat 24F a little faster. You KNOW she’s just going to take her sweet ass time walking down the aisle, reading her ticket upside-down, trying to figure out who she is and what this big metal things she’s stuck in is called (hint to the old lady: it’s called AN AIRPLANE. Get used to it, or get off the bus, ‘cause it’s on a one-way trip to THE FUTURE).
Finally, the real hidden gem of the New Sexy Boarding is evident in the final process, when it’s time to stow luggage and sit down in your assigned seat.
Come along with me and consider this subject on a level of detail that would make Plato’s little head spin.
The Final Stage of Boarding – Stupid Old Stupid Way
Need I say more? What a waste of time. THANK THE HEAVENLY LORD FOR EFFICIENCY EXPERTS AND THEIR SUSPENDERS.
The Final Stage of Boarding – New Sexy Way
Ah. Now we see where it all comes together. Where the plans of the various cogs of corporate bureaucracy come together and grind their gears to produce yet another paragon of human executive planning at its finest.
Because of the random boarding procedure, someone sitting in row nine may very well get on before someone sitting in row twenty.
This is great because the person in row nine has to stop the entire line of boarding passengers while he/she takes five minutes to properly and safely stow luggage in an overhead compartment, all the while deciding exactly which brush or magazine they want to remove for the trip, lest they should feel the craving for a nice grooming or article on the African Savannah during the flight. All the while, sixty people are being held up.
See? It’s a chance for networking. While waiting for the row nine person to put everything away, you can turn to the bloodshot-eyed, weary half-human troll standing next to you and crack an insanely hilarious joke that will lead you to a Forever-Friendship. Like, try this joke: “I hope they serve coffee on this flight.” I mean, that’s some funny shit right there, and I know, because people say stuff like that to me all the time. So much that I’ve stopped fake-laughing and just gone straight to the cold stare and nod followed by a swift kick to the nuts. I find there’s no better way to say “I appreciate your wit and humor, but it’s hot in here, and could you just shut the fuck up?”
All the while, there’s an airline attendant who, just moments after telling us all to board at the same time without regard to row number, says this: “EVERYBODY, THIS IS AN EXTREMELY FULL FLIGHT WE’RE HAVING TODAY, AND THE SOONER YOU GET YOUR LUGGAGE STOWED, THE SOONER WE CAN LEAVE.”
I love the way they use “full” as a relative term. Like a flight can be partially full. Like we should allowe pre-boarding for the partially pregnant women.
All hail the airline attendants and their glory.
Point Proven
Clearly, the Stupid Old School Way is old, stupid, and old school. I know I’ve been a happier passenger ever since the element of total uncertainty about boarding has been added to the list of other concerns I have while traveling.
Oddly enough, though, and in spite of the joy it brings into my heart like a rainbow shining from the eyes of a unicorn directly into the innocent eyes of a child, I still want to anally violate everybody in the airline industry with a very large fishhook.
Yay! Yay for THE FUTURE.
I wish they sold morphine on these flights. Then I could just go to bed and not waste battery power on this crap.