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"Airports And Their Terminus."
-By Philip Wesley-
-Posted June 12, 2006-
This is an important announcement. This is Flight 121 to Los Angeles. If your travel plans today do not include Los Angeles, now would be the perfect time to disembark. - Douglas Adams
A peculiar habit of human society is the ability to look at things that are completely unrelated to each other and decide that such things are truly an important reflection of themselves of society in general. Take for example: The modern bee is about as far removed in both physical stature, attitude, and amount of mental stamina from a human as could possibly be allowed in this unfortunate dimension that we live in. Yet, it is possible for nerdy virginal scientists to spend years studying bees and other insects; then write award winning papers on how the rest of humanity is obviously gay. Bees have come to the conclusion that they are also pretty sure humanity is pretty gay, just by looking at us. Maybe the the ability to come to these sort of conclusions is a natural talent of humanity in general. Yes, the deeper meaning of everyday objects is not just a far reaching waste of time; but also a meaningful reflection of society in general. Thus we ascribe special meaning and significance to items of temporary or truly worthless function.
"So, where were you when they done broke the two towers?" She said in a bit of a dour tone.
"Probably waiting at an airport." Replied the person in the cubicle down the way.
"That would be ironic." She heartily replied in an attempt to be clever.
"No. That would be normal." The person in the cubicle down the way snapped back in a slightly irritated tone.
Airports are far from normal in any sense of the word. Airports are a funny name for a funny invention by a funny society full of funny people who take themselves too seriously. Why they are called Airports is a mystery; because they do not specialize in the porting or portation of air. They do specialize in the porting or portation of long metal cylinders with wings and motors attached to them. However, "Long Metal Cylinders with wings and motors attached to them port" was considered too long by the general populous and thus abandoned like rational thought in college. People, exercising an extreme amount of the lack of self preservation, step into these long metal cylinders with wings and motors attached to them in hopes that the cylinders will carry them to where they were hoping to go to on that particular day. These particular cylinders are refereed to as aeroplanes or airplanes. Air is apparently all around us and even inside of us. Thankfully, air has not decided to attack us and instead enjoys a parasitic existence with humanity. A plane is a type of slope or incline. One would suppose the name comes from the shape of the wings that are precariously soldered and bolted to the sides of the tubes. The wings neither have asked to be soldered and bolted to the sides of the tubes, nor do they seem particularly annoyed or jubilant to be there. It is supposed that they feel it is somehow their place in life to be bolted and soldered to the sides of tubes that they have not been properly introduced to as of yet with no hope of ever being properly introduced to the tubes even after they have been soldered or bolted to them by apathetic or utterly disgruntled union workers or illegal immigrants for quite a large and vast amount of time. This is noted by some historians as "most unfortunate." This is also noted by some scientists as "pretty gay." We think there may be some deep rooted problems there that should be addressed by interpretive cosplay. Which we will discuss at some other time; because this is all about airports.
On the wings are little tubes with large fans that spin inside of them. Scientists say that the tubes allows the cylinders to fly and maneuver about in the air. This is easily ridiculous as tying a fan to your arm does not enable you to fly from your office to someone elses office building no matter how much you wish it would be so. I suppose if people were able to do that, they would fly to other people's offices and realize that the workplaces of others are just like their own: frightfully and mind-numbingly dull. Upon discovering this, they would probably regard flying as just rubbish and then go about doing whatever frightfully and mind-numbingly dull task they have been appointed to. A frightful and mind-numbingly dull task such as designing airplanes, or the latest style of shoelaces.
"Did you want I should get some doughnut holes, too?" Said a slightly irritated black man in a slightly blue striped suit as he wandered into her cubicle.
"Green." She said.
"What of that?" He replied with frightful and mind-numbing apathy.
"Yes, and I believe the next color of shoelaces should be green, not Forest Green, mind you. A more plebeian green with little white pinstripes."
"Powdered?"
"Like always." She replied with a slightly bored look on her face. If we knew who she and the person with which she was conversing were, we would probably realize that it meant nothing to our conversation on planes or anything at all in general.
"On second thought, glazed please."
The ability to fly is achieved by throwing oneself at the ground and missing. In order to miss the ground, you must be somehow distracted by something other than the ground and thus become jolted out of the process of falling to that ground. Airplanes are able to achieve flight because they are too self-absorbed or dense to notice that there was any ground below them at all. This may be because the tubes themselves are not what is moving around. In fact, only the wheels of the planes ever realize that they are on the ground, but because they have no way of communicating that point to the tube or wings, they just choose to eventually shut up, and make themselves scarce by hiding inside the tubes. Why they do not choose to hide inside the wings, or just jump off altogether is a mystery. Some wheels have abandoned their places in the past and this has caused the tube and wings to come to a stark realization that this ground they have heard so much about actually exists and is a bit rough in its embrace of them. The people inside of the tube are also pretty unhappy when this happens as well; because they know that this may lead to being stuck on an island with strange killer mists or other kinds of cannibalism. When such a thing occurs, tires desperately re-evaluate their life choices up to that moment.
Airports are where the wheels feel they are the safest, not that they have any choice to go there as the rather imperialistic tubes and wings carry them off to those places. The tubes and wings go off to those places because both of them believe the other one really wishes to go there and are doing so out of a polite gesture. Sometimes the wings, wheels, and tubes get a little confused and thus flights are delayed. It is best to wait for such a thing to simply blow over because tubes and wings have the attention span of small children, US Presidents, and self-important documentary makers. Many a documentary maker feels that whatever they feel they must prove or talk about is somehow interesting enough to waste the time of other people over. Thus a great deal of rubbish is created. Luckily for those who create rubbish, there are people who feel it would be too rude to call it rubbish and therefore must heap made up awards upon the rubbish for being more or less rubbish than other bits of rubbish. If one were to call it bollocks, that would be rude and harmful to the minds of young children: Therefore rubbish is the most widely accepted term. "Rubbish Green" would make a rather unpopular shoelace.
Before entering a plane, the people who feel they must enter that plane must undergo an interesting ritual similar to communion or baptism, but slightly more intrusive and very slightly less enlightening. This ritual is referred to as a security check. They must abandon all their worldly goods, and empty their pockets of any items and place those items into a tray. Sometimes they may be asked to take off their shoes and place those in a tray as well. Some people may be asked to leave their shoes on. Once they have placed their items into a tray, they may walk through a small gate that beeps loudly if they have forgotten an item. Thus they are rejected from the gate until they remove said item. It would be interesting to make a comparison of going through a security check as being a bit like going through the Gates of Heaven, Vahalla, or whatever abode for the dead and blessed that you and I would ascribe to as being an abode for the dead and blessed. You can not go through with items that are harmful, nor can you pass through said gate with any of your worldly possessions. One could also compare going into the abode for the dead and blessed as being like taking a particularly awkward step on the long end of your "capitalism green" shoelace and falling face first into the ground. Heaven help you if you do not miss.
The items placed into the trays are sent on a small moving rubber pathway through a machine, where a bored and disinterested elderly man is most likely only staring at your items in a smug way because he felt he did not want to be the greeter at your local grocery superstore. He or sometimes she, is looking for items that may indicate some sort of malicious intent on the behalf of the items owners. Mostly, he or she is probably just nosey and enjoys looking at your undergarments for the sake of pure spite. Security checks have become increasingly more and more important as times grow more and more irritable. Since a particularly unsettling event in which a few wings and tubes became interested in becoming amorous or at least friendly with some particularly large and ungainly buildings in the large and ungainly island known as New York. It is not known which ones decided it would be a good idea for them to meet, but as soon as one tube and wings got the idea to do this, another one thought it would be a jolly good sport as well. The wheels and especially the rubber of the wheels felt that they would rather have been used as part of a basketball at that point and time and pondered on how to escape the quickest. If they only knew of the abuse placed upon spheroids like basketballs, maybe the wheels would have wished differently. But in the end, it could not be helped. The day apparently has some sort of significance; because everyone in New York pretended to be nicer to each other a little harder than they normally do. Someday, the whole of the city may fall into the ocean; but that does not seem to be as important as whether or not the Knicks are playing with any sort of recognizable spheroid abusing skill. The makers of this article encourage you to buy embarrassing undergarments so that the gentleman or lady operating the machines may at least find a shred of amusement in his or her meaningless scrap of existence. This is also a good time to take inventory of what you have brought with you to make sure it is all there.
First and foremost, check to make sure that your towel has made it through the machine in a recognizable form. If it has made it through in an unrecognizable form, shake it vigorously until it has assumed a recognizable form. A bottle opener is best placed inside another piece of luggage or on a keychain as some airports believe bottle openers to be deadlier than business cards. If you carry condoms in your pocket, do not forget to nod and wink knowingly at the -most likely- teen aged security person who is operating the gate or metal wand with a standard -if not faked- prejudice. A special note for women: The larger and more buoyant the mammaries that evolution or your deity has bestowed upon you, the more likely it is that they will want to run a small wand that beeps over your body. They do this because they feel it will magically make you attracted to them in such a furious manner as to wish to engage in carnal activity right there on the spot. However, they all seem to have forgotten the magic words to the incantation that goes along with the wand waving action. If you really must know, the last person who knew of the words died a few years back from a particularly nasty fall that was the result of waving one of the wands over a young, blonde pilot. Sadly she was flying the small plane he was in and the resulting fall of the wings, tube, and wheels to the ground was reported on the news as "Just another dead Kennedy." Recently though, a rumor has spread that the magic words only consist of one word. That word is "Bulbasaur." Do not ask how this works, for it has baffled many and will continue to baffle many more until people just accept it in the way they accept a microwave as being a device for cooking food and not a device for contaminating the home with toxic gamma rays from beyond space. A microwave is a lousy device to pass off as carry on luggage and you should probably not attempt to do so at any point in time.
After boarding a plane, the people who have chosen to enter the tube, sit down in uncomfortable little seats made of a sticky kind of plastic. They then are made to strap flimsy bits of fabric along their laps as to keep them from escaping a plane if the wings and tube should decide that the ground would be an interesting destination with which to make contact. Part of the pre-flight, if you can call it flight, proceedings involves the explanation of how to escape certain and mostly painful death and dismemberment in case of an emergency. One of these is an interesting predicament where the amount of pressure inside the vehicle suddenly drops and little masks full of oxygen fall from the roof. Over the years, mankind has developed an immunity to using oxygen as an actual source of breathing material. Instead pure oxygen makes humans seem light headed and has the same result as a good bit of alcohol. This is meant to assure that at least half of the people inside the tube will perish happily, while the other half -which was probably asleep- will awaken to find that they may be forced to eat their oxygen choked neighbors. That is why it is very important to sit next to at least one fat person on your flight. Preferably a documentary maker full of both bacon and self importance.
The ideal sitting situation is to be sitting next to one fat person and one person whom you find to be attractive. That way, you can find someone nice to share your fat person meal with. One thing to note is that it is indeed rude to ask a fat person about their nutritional value when you first sit down next to them. Wait until after they have served the drinks. Tucking a towel around your mouth and nose is a better substitute for the oxygen choking masks. Your towel will make an excellent bib if you happen to be messy when enjoying your fat person meal. Remember the essentials! If you should accidentally spill your drink. Towels are indeed very useful.
Use of your essential items is critical. For example: If you are sitting next to a person who is unattractive, but he or she is sitting next to an attractive person that you would wish to copulate with in the airplane lavatory in an animalistic manner; use your tools. This is where a towel may or may not be a good idea. Try coaxing the middle person to sleep, this can be done by purchasing them a few drinks or gently draping your towel over their face and pummeling them lightly. Or you could just forego violence on their personage and just use your pen to write small notes on the back of your business cards and pass those to the object de' amour. Included the pen and a blank business card so he/she/it may write back to you. After establishing a proposal of sinful Biblicalness, bring your towel, a pen, and a small metal tin. Preferably fill that tin with non-essentials. Wink and wink and nudge and nudge. Since airplane lavatories are generally small, place the towel there, you know what to do with the non-essentials, and we will not spell it out for you. The pen is for really quickly activating the fire alarm and leaving the lavatory in a hurry if you discover them to have some sort of quirk that may result in a severe lack of copulatory interest.
Bunching your towel around your ears is a good way to block out the annoying crying or talking of nearby people. It is also a good privacy shield between you and your neighbor. In some seats, you may be able to use the sharp point of your pen to help prop up your towel like a curtain, so that you do not have to be soused with the presence of annoying or unsatisfactory neighbors on your long and mundane flight. Airplane lavatories are an interesting combobulation of the time and space continuum and probably the best place to be in case the plane has been hijacked. A plane hijacking is when people take weapons of malicious intent and threaten the passengers unless the plane diverts to a new route. This is a pointless exercise as it would have been easier for them to purchase a ticket to that other destination instead of the destination they did purchase a ticket for. Wait until they have calmed down and then you may sneak up on them and knock them out with your towel, pens, and metal tin full of airline peanuts or bits of hard items.
"Hey you go." He said as he pushed the box of doughnuts toward her and then walked back to his cubicle with a sense of superior annoyance.
She took a bite into the fresh, hot and round pastry and thought to herself. "I Should have gone with the powdered."
Article by Philip Wesley
Property of DMG Ice, dmgice.com, and the original author as expressed in the by-line.