If Assholes Could Fly, This Place Would Be an Airport

If Assholes Could Fly, This Place Would Be an Airport

I do a decent amount of flying. Enough so that I have status on American Airlines, which gets me upgrades from time to time. I probably fly 20 trips a year. I’ve seen some shit, like the time I was sitting in First Class when the guy next to me decides to get up to hang a whizz right when the plane was taking off. I have never seen flight attendants freak out like that. He was like, what? What did I do? He had no idea he was an asshole.

Most assholes do not realize they are assholes. Like the person who watches YouTube videos on their phone with sound on, or the mom who gives the childproof iPad to their son or daughter to watch cartoons…with the sound on. The penalty for the sound on in public should be summary execution. I had a friend in Myrtle Beach who used to do that in restaurants. He’d whip out his phone and start playing videos at top volume. I stopped hanging out with him, and I never told him why I stopped hanging out with him. Headphones, people, headphones.

There is a big debate about small children on planes. Like, some uptight people hate kids, and hate kids on planes, and get super grumpy when a baby starts crying. I find that position to be unreasonable. Parents need to travel with their kids, and babies cry. I will add a caveat. The caveat is that you should not bring children into first class, because people go there to relax and get some peace and quiet and get some work done. I was on a flight once where a couple showed up in first class with four kids from the ages of 2-5, and the experience was so unpleasant, I might as well have been assigned to an overhead bin. One of the worst flights of my life. If you have a noisy or misbehaving child, bite the bullet and sit in coach, even if you have the money to fly first class. It is the polite thing to do.

There was one incident where I was flying from Charlotte to LaGuardia, sitting in first, and there was a girl in the row right behind first class that had an extremely disturbing meltdown for the entire duration of the flight. It’s impossible to describe how unsettling it was—it sounded like she needed an exorcism. And it didn’t stop. It was so bad, the flight attendants handed out free vodka to the entire plane. When the plane landed, she stopped. I don’t think anyone was pissed off about that one—it was clear that the girl was emotionally troubled. But man, next time, you might want to consider driving.

Airport lounges are of special concern to me. I spend a lot of time in them, since I’m usually making connections, and I count on getting some work done in the lounge. No kids in the lounge, please. I’ve been trying to write a newsletter when two eight-year-olds were playing tackle football right in the middle of the lounge. And while I don’t mind crying babies on a plane, for fuck’s sake, don’t bring a baby in a lounge. People pay a lot of money to get away from the noise and chaos of an airport, and then you bring the noise and chaos inside the lounge. It is very bad etiquette. So inevitably someone will say, well, my kids are well-behaved. Ok. If you really know that your kids are well-behaved, I guess it is fine. But no babies. Just go sit by the gate.

Along those lines, years ago I was following one of my favorite DJs on Facebook, Blake Jarrell, and he was flying to or from a gig and was seated next to a woman with a baby, who thought it was okay to change the diaper right there in the seat next to him. He was flipping out on his Facebook post. It’s human fucking shit! It’s human fucking shit! Can’t say I blame him. I have a weak stomach. If that happened to me, I would be barfing, and I would probably aim it at the baby. Even if it’s a pee diaper, it’s still not acceptable.

I don’t pay much attention to the airplane mode thing on my phone. To my knowledge, no plane has ever been crashed because someone left their cell phone on. I’m on my phone up until the second we take off, and I turn on the roaming as soon as we get low enough to pick up a signal. Fuck that rule. Besides, everyone is doing it—including the flight attendants. Yes, I have seen multiple flight attendants surfing the web on the tarmac. What a crock of shit. Of course, dumbass next to me in first class fires up a YouTube video (with the sound on) right as the plane is taking off. At least be discreet about it, dude.

The luggage situation is better than it used to be, since they started building planes with oversized bins. I have a large carry-on, and it used to be hit-or-miss whether I’d get it to fit. Then I’d face the ignominy of having to drag my bag back up to the front of the plane to get gate-checked, and waiting for it to roll out the chute in baggage claim like a chump. Now there is plenty of room. Unless you’re boarding in group 37, in which case you’re sconed. I travel light. I have a proper suitcase at home, but I haven’t used it in years. I recently went to New York for two weeks and fit everything I needed in a backpack and a carry-on. I see people checking into a hotel with six suitcases, and I’m like, what the fuck? I get it—people like the option of wearing different outfits. Just plan it out ahead of time, and you’ll save yourself a lot of hassle.

I’m more extroverted than I used to be, and I like striking up conversations with people on planes. This can be touchy, though. You can pick up pretty quickly if someone doesn’t want to talk. Women almost never want to talk, because in 2022, everything is interpreted as a sexual advance, which could be an essay unto itself. I met a cool dude on a flight who subscribed to this newsletter, who is probably reading this right now. I meet all kinds of interesting people. One time I met a guy who sold manufacturing equipment to gelato factories. And we had a long discussion about gelato. Apparently, there are a lot of gelato poseurs out there—they’re not making it right, and it’s essentially ice cream. But Talenti is the real deal, he said.

The most amazing thing I’ve ever heard on a plane was about ten years ago—I can’t remember where I was going. I was towards the back of the plane, and a very loud and annoying businessman was telling the guy next to him about his second home, his third home, his boats, his cars, and his plane. So the guy asks him, what do you do? And he says, I am the CEO of the number two eyewear retainer manufacturer in the country. “Eyewear retainer? Like Croakies?” the guy asks. “Yes, Croakies is our biggest competitor,” he said. And then I thought about it. Multiple homes, multiple boats, planes, from getting the silver medal in making eyewear retainers. Stupid little strings. The markup is probably enormous. God, I love capitalism. Capitalism is the greatest fucking thing in the world. As an aside, whoever says that the business world is cutthroat has never worked in business. It is easy. You can come in second and still make a very good living. You can come in sixth and still make a good living.

I will close with this: farting on an airplane is no bueno. For some reason, farts smell way worse in the air than they do on the ground. Every time I think I can sneak one out, it inevitably results with people angrily looking around to see who the culprit was. I sat behind a woman on an international flight who was dropping bombs for hours. It was miserable. About once every ten minutes, she would let one rip. Of course, you can’t hear them over the engines, but there’s no doubt about what’s going on here. If you have to rip ass, go to the lavatory and stay there for a while.

Go fuck yourself,

Jared

Music recommendation: BT (feat. JC Chasez) - Simply Being Loved (Somnambulist). Burned up an iPod listening to this over and over again in 2006. BT is one of the pioneers in electronic music, a technical mad scientist, and a little bit of a dick. He’s known for his early breakbeat stuff, but the trance he did later in his career was amazing, too. Lots of stuff to geek out on in this song, check it out.

P.S. We’re Gonna Get Those Bastards will always be free. Please forward to whoever you like.