Notes from 30,000 feet

As I write this, I’m flying in a Boeing 737 on my way to Sacramento to see me mum for Christmas. I cannot resist of course, making a few observations about air travel while I’m here.

I wonder, will I get in trouble if I type the word “terrorist?� “Bomb?� “Big, fiery explosion with many, many body parts and death to the infidels?�

One can’t help but think about death while flying aboard a Southwest Airlines flight. It’s not just the peanuts, it’s a cultural pall of death that we’ve wrapped around our airlines. It didn’t start with September Eleventh either, but has been around ever since there’s been air disasters. Before I get on an airplane, I think about who will take care of my cats if I die, and what a pity it would be if I perished and never finished my novels. Yet I don’t have those thoughts when I climb into a car, although statistically, my chances of dying in a car crash are much higher.

It would be easy to blame the media, saying that they sensationalize airplane crashes beyond their weight. But that’s only partly true. The fact is, that airplanes are so damn lethal…

“PRAISE ALLAH!�

(I bet the stewardesses can read that praise Allah… I wonder if I should erase it…)

Airplanes don’t kill people, smashing into things like the ground and Pentagons is what kills people. And we passengers are all trusting our lives to a chain of fallible humanity, any link of which could fail. We are at the mercy of imperfect technology and gravity. The lethality of the combination is humbling… or perhaps terrifying is the word.

Were I sitting in a skinny easy chair in the park, I wouldn’t worry about my safety. However, if every man, woman and child in that park was carrying a loaded firearm, I might begin to feel a smidge tense because the potential lethality of my place in the skinny easy chair would be much greater.

“Death to the Western Infidel Dogs!�

I’m not a worrier in general. I think flight is great… we need more flight. We need flying cars and jet packs and all the things that the Jetsons promised us. And just because something, such as human flight, is not natural, doesn’t mean it’s bad. I just think the bathrooms should be bigger.

- posted by Katherine @ 8:48 AM 0 comments

 
Gifting

It's that time again. Time for me to wring my hands and worry: who am I obligated to give presents to this year? And what presents should I give people, seeing as I'm unemployed and running out of old, hand made pottery?

The first question has everything to do with who, to my knowledge, is giving ME presents. Not including my mom, if I am given a present, I must give one in return or else I feel like a slimy, worthless piece of crap who deserves to be dragged through the mud behind a draft horse with diarrhea. There are also people who are doing me favors, like watching my cats during my trip to California... Are they deserving of gifts? Or just hard cash?

Then once I've figured out who should get a present, the question becomes, what shall I give them? If you're living on the cheap, then giving a gift that suits the individuality of the recipient and shows that you love them and pay attention to their wants and needs is nearly impossible. So you're left with either giving things around your house that you no longer want, or buying everyone a box of medium priced chocolates. I lean toward the chocolates anyway... No one I know needs more crap lying around their homes.

I don't like giving gifts. If I had money, then I could be magnanimous, and show my friends grand gestures of generosity that would shock and amaze them... Like buying everyone ponies, or houses in Conneticut. But until that time, don't be shocked if you get a Whitman Sampler.
- posted by Katherine @ 5:09 PM 0 comments

 
Skanky Claus

The dirty, drunk homeless Department Store Santa has become a cliché, an urban legend who’s verisimilitude is brought into question by the legions of rosy cheeked, well fed, jolly old fat men who don Saint Nick’s raiment every year to delight and terrify children all across the country.

I am here to tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that the legend is true. Don’t believe the propaganda, the lies, the shiny lights and advertising; for I have met the true: Skanky Claus… and he works at The Bon.

I thought at first he was just a crazy homeless guy who wandered into the offices from the street… it happens frightfully often at The Bon. Just last week, a crazy homeless guy who smelled of urine managed to get an interview with the advertising department, in a bewildering demonstration of the power of aggressive networking (he didn’t get the job, but just getting the interview was a triumph). So when this man came to the door of our offices and said, “Hello girls” as if we were all good pals, I became suspicious. He was wearing a dirty, powder blue down coat, beat up jeans and an equally beat up pack slung across his back. He also had a long white beard, but at the time I didn’t make the connection. I and the other assistant smiled politely, wondering who this guy was and if he was looking for advertising. He nodded and went away. A few hours later, Santa Claus himself walked past our door toward the bathroom. He loped along on skinny legs, his rumpled red suit hanging off his thin frame everywhere but his belly, which was distended by a pillow, making him look like a jolly, bloated famine victim. Then I saw his face, and recognized the white beard, and the leering gleam in his eye. He was Mr. Powder Blue Coat.

Since then, I’ve seen him every day. Sometimes, when the child traffic is slow, he wanders around the Christmas shop, staring distantly at the glowing angels. Other times, when I have to pass him in the narrow halls, he crowds me so that my choices are to touch him, or the wall. And every morning he says ‘hi’ to us, as if we’re all good friends, and I haven’t yet decided if I’m more disturbed when he’s in, or out of costume.

- posted by Katherine @ 11:11 PM 0 comments