Laugh to keep from crying.
Lots of suggestions have been tossed about regarding how commercial air travel can be improved. Most of these come with hefty price tags: more airports, improved passenger management software, upgraded air traffic control systems, etc. But in a funny Time magazine essay this week, writer Steve Rushin offers up some no-cost alternatives.
Rushin’s suggestions cost nothing because they all have to do with human behavior, more specifically, stopping annoying human behavior on airplanes. For example, in this essay entitled “Bad Air Days,” he writes: “My plan would give prison time to the passenger who stands in the aisle fastidiously folding his blazer–’like he’s in the color guard at Arlington National Cemetery,’ as comedian Dennis Miller once put it–before placing it in an otherwise empty overhead, defying you to crush it with your carry-on.”
For those seated around him, Rushin has some advice. For example: “To the person seated behind me: When you hoist yourself up by my seat back, that seat becomes a catapult, and I become its payload.” And to the person seated in front of him, Rushin says: I am neither a barber or a dental hygienist, so kindly remove your seat from my lap.”
Check out Rushin’s essay. You’ll laugh for sure. Though we can’t promise you won’t cry, too.
