Actually, this post has nothing to do with Custer at all - I just wanted to use an American historical reference to appear clever. Now that we've hit the high intellectual point, we can dip into the rest.
I was once told in a performance review at work that I suffer fools badly. Apparently this was feedback for development. I must admit that for a long time I didn’t see what the problem was - fools were, by nature, foolish and therefore ought to have been suffered badly. What can be more irritating that some moron stuffing up something simple and then looking confused about why it happened? Or worse, looking to you to fix it? As life is want to do, eventually I was sent a lesson and did something foolish myself. I was therefore forced to re-evaluate my assumptions about fools and realised that not all fools were created equal. Nevertheless, there are plenty of the common, garden-variety type that still do not deserve much grace. Or perhaps they do because they are fools to begin with and know no better? See, I’m still confused about the subject but never mind that for now. Let’s just say that humans bemuse me more often than not. Let me give you some examples.
An unfortunate bi-product of travel is aeroplanes. While they are a feat of engineering that makes my mind boggle and are a definite improvement on spending months in a leaky boat, they are also sardine cans from hell. Those who design the seating for planes should be forced to fly economy all day every day for their entire lives. It’s no less than they deserve for having developed such an insult to human dignity. But I digress. The curious part of plane travel is people.
Many people these days travel quite frequently and therefore commonly bristle under the abusive minstrations of grumpy airline crew (many of whom should frankly have been retired or at least grounded and given a desk job years ago) who try to enforce the instructions to buckle up, right seat backs, stow tray tables, raise shades and the all-important turn off electronic devices. This last one in particular seems to be particularly challenging for lots of people. You can see them display visible signs of panic as they are forced to momentarily part with their electronic appendage extensions. So many times now I have seen all sorts of surreptitious mis-use of electronic devices well after the request has gone out to turn them off and put them away. Just on that - what part of “turn off” do people have trouble understanding? I wager that blanking the screen or shutting a flap is not “turned off” according to the instruction manuals of most devices yet that seems to be all that people are willing to do. Don’t get me wrong - I am 100% in agreement with dispensing with needless rules and laws. Just like we got rid of “no dancing on a Sunday” from the statute books (presumably thanks to the original Footloose), there are plenty of others I’d like to see stricken from the record. And I’m all for personal responsibility. If you want to drive down the road at a billion miles an hour in the middle of the night when no one else is around, I’m not fussed. Especially if you hit a tree. Then I applaud you for doing mankind a favour by removing yourself from the gene pool. Just don’t do it when others are present and you may hurt them. So what I don’t mind are rules that are there for the safety of all. But I think there is an onus on rule-makers to explain why the rules are there so we can sort the natural-born fools from those having a rare moment and suffer badly (or not) accordingly.
Back to aeroplanes and electronic devices. Do electronic devices really derail the navigation systems? Or is that just a convenient excuse because you want people to watch the safety demonstration rather than play Angry Birds? (What is that about anyway? That’s a whole other blog for another day.) If e-devices are going to cause the big sardine can to fall out of the sky, then I’d like the hosties to make a bit more of a consistent fuss about turning the equipment off, explaining why and then perhaps asking the rest of the plane if they mind that the gentleman in seat 17A is going to cause them to die because he doesn’t want to miss an email from the office. If the devices are harmless, then stop making stupid rules. And to the passengers who think they know better than the airline, feel free to exercise your human right to be stupid on your own time and without risk to me. Also, to the guy across the aisle, if you’re such a frequent flyer that you can’t bear to yet again take instruction from the crew, then why didn’t you do all the stuff you’re supposed to do before they asked you to do it? Why did we take off with your shade down and your armrest up and with your iPad on??? Sir, I demand you explain yourself.
Now back to aeroplane design. Where to begin? The indignity of it all is almost too much to bear, so let me refrain from whining and just ask one question. Can someone explain to me the physics of seat backs? On US aircraft, the seat tilt goes from tipping you forward to allowing you to sit in a very, very upright position. Relaxing, as you can imagine. What I don’t understand is how, when I’m using every muscle in my body to defy gravity and remain upright, is it possible that the chaps in front of me always seem to be lying in my lap? (While still sitting very, very upright and occasionally head-butting the seat in front when they nod off.) I have tried to draw that triangle but the angles just don’t add up. It’s quite perplexing.
Speaking of being perplexed, let me give you another example of the cognitive limitations displayed by some. I recently went to a grocery store and organised a nice stock of wine to purchase. At the checkout, the pimply-faced youth looked confused by my ID and said he’d have to check it with a manger. No problem, said I, and waited patiently for the floor manager to arrive. The floor manager took one look at it and declared that he couldn’t accept it as it was foreign. What the? Having spent almost three months in the US and coming across this attitude for the first time, I was a little taken aback but my good Danish friend instantly spotted a challenged intellect and requested the presence of his manager rather than take up this significant coaching opportunity. The store manager arrived promptly but alas was of the same mind. Apparently, foreigners aren’t supposed to drink in Texas - it’s the law. He helpfully suggested that if we obtained temporary State ID cards, he would be happy to allow us to make the purchase. Given there were tens of other establishments in the area perfectly happy to sell me as much booze as I was willing to buy, I decided not to try to reason with them but instead very loudly declared it was a ridiculous decision and stormed off, frowning sternly. But wait, there’s more. That wasn’t even the height of the imbecilia. I couldn’t storm very far cos the other Dane was still waiting to complete his purchases, so the chap in front of him helpfully waded into the debate while I waited. “Why don’t y’all just use your Texas driver’s licence?” We supplied him with what we thought must be a missing piece of information, namely that we were from out of town but in his mind, that didn’t seem to have any relevance at all to his question. He still looked at us expectantly, awaiting an answer. So, looking confusedly at each other, we explained “er, well, we’re not from Texas so we don’t have a Texas drivers licence.” That didn’t seem to help much either. Thankfully he completed his transaction and left the store before he could ask us how it was that we knew how to drive if we didn’t have licences - that was my bet on what his next thought was. Probably scratched his head all the way into next week about that.
And it doesn’t end there folks. On Monday, the Danes and I went to the Texas State Fair (like the Royal show, but Texas-sized). You’ve seen one agricultural show, you’ve seen them all so I won’t waste valuable blog space with descriptions of the rides, sideshows or livestock (but there were some very cute labrador puppies that deserve a mention). What I will tell you about continues on our theme of stupidity. We know fat is bad for us. We know fat costs the health system huge sums of money. We know governments are rubbish at setting policy signals that encourage markets to respond in ways that encourage public good. We know that Americans in particular hate direct regulations (although Australians aren’t far behind on that one). We also know how rarely people make decisions that are good for them when there are tasty, cheap and easy alternatives. So knowing all that, why on earth would a STATE have a fair that encouraged obesity through an annual “best deep fried new food” competition. Past competitors include fried chocolate bars, fried pineapple upside-down cake, fried cheesecake, fried beer (I kid you not), fried lemonade, fried frozen margharita, fried s’mores (marshmallow-cookie-chocolate sandwich) and ....wait for it...... deep fried butter. Yep, they take a stick of butter (yep, butter comes in sticks here), batter it and deep fry it. Apparently it’s delicious. Well of course it is, it’s deep fried. Most things rolled in batter and fried are tasty but that’s no reason to eat them. And just quietly, what sort of mind woke up one morning and thought they’d try deep-frying animal fat in chemical fat to see how it tasted? And how many serves did they go through before they perfected the recipe? Oh, I just don’t know what else to say. I throw my hands up in defeat.
And so I come to the end of my time in the USA. I have to thank my excellent hosts and friends throughout the country - Nancy in Palm Springs, Laura in Santa Rosa and Adrian and Jo in Dallas (double dose of thanks to A&J for 2 bouts of hosting duties). I also have to thank my travel buddies - Hannah for adding depth and breadth to my New York experience and for sharing my birthday with me at the very cool and iconic Apollo Theatre and to the (great) Danes, Jens and Thomas, for living large in Vegas (via Sunnyvale and Yosemite) and being lovely co-guests in the Big D (thanks especially for looking after me when I became a festering bag of human pestilence).
I am currently in transit through New York, on my way to beautiful Paris to meet the equally beautiful Simone. So the next blog will be from half a world away in the opposite direction (and therefore technically, half-way home). Be good to each other and try not to be foolish. Peace-out. xx
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