AeroCapitalism: The Real Reasons We Fly
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A shuttle from Sea-Tac to SFO, and the hell of it is that in the rush for the airport, I have forgotten a novel I'm reading. Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" rests on the bedstand. And I was just to the good part. Now wedged at the over-wing window, I gaze out at stratosphere. Country goes by underneath. I have those random thoughts about mid-air disintegrations, but so far it's a smooth flight. With vacant hands, eyes and--in general--mind, I excise a catalog from the pouch five-eighths of an inch from my kneecaps.
Wow! Look at the nifty stuff in here!
"The Messaging Cap." A Gilligan lid with an LCD readout (no fucking shit!) across the front, this item is a must for that person who needs to tell the world what he/she thinks while looking like a dolt. Up to ten messages can scroll by! The catalog suggests, "Go team! Score again!" and "To be or not to be, that is the question." I suggest, "No fucking shit!" $24.95.
How about the "Closet Organizing Trouser Rack"? Here is a slick, spiraling stick thing that will array trousers. Each morning one may go to put pants on--a leg at a time, as they say--and encounter this objet d'art. Walk-in closet = art gallery. The best I can say about organized pants is that mine are twisted through hangers. And I have a stack of Levi's, about three quarters of which no longer fit. You remember that evolution from 501s to 505s, yes? $39.95.
Whoa! "Breathe Easy Funnel," for decanting wine. So it will aerate. Where has this been all my life? The copy next to the picture crows that this gewgaw is "very popular in Europe" (?). I guess you use this so your wine will have a good nose on it. I don't know much about that--the wine I glug always has a nose like a paper sack. No, wait, that's what's actually around the wine I usually glug. $74.95.
Now what about this "Recoiling Garden Hose," which looks like that loopy umbilicus hooking your telephone's handset to its cradle? The copy promises, "No more frustrating tangled hoses!" Right. Anyone have a phone cord that doesn't look like the snarled fish line in the bottom of my tacklebox? This hose is available in green, blue, red, copper and violet. Violet? $39.99 for 25 feet; $69.99 for 50.
Here's a swell idea: the "Solar Tan Thru Suit." A swimsuit that lets those rays through a special patented fabric woven with thousands of tiny pores. Sure, the models look fabulous today, here, right now, in the catalog. Whoo-boy! But think of where they have to glob on that greasy sunscreen. Ouch! "And dries twice as fast as ordinary suits." $50 to $80. Melanoma bill: priceless.
And what about these lawn ornaments--a prancing ceramic cherub, the St. Francis of Assisi bird feeder, a happy little doggy with a bone in its jaw with YOUR NAME HERE on a placard around its scruffy neck, handcrafted cranes. (What? No plastic pink flamingoes? No Jolson- faced lawn jockeys?)
And framed posters of really neat photography and motivational sayings: "Achievement: blah blah blah blah," and Teamwork: "blah blah blah blah," et cetera. ("No Fucking Shit: blah blah blah blah"). Luggage that beeps as it rounds the carousel! One-cup coffee brewers! Holographic vases! Confidence-building seminars!
These are not the Sea Monkeys and X-ray specs of my boyhood comic books. (How I yearned for that monkey-king and his scepter, and his monkey-queen, to materialize in the fishbowl; yet why would a boy of eight or nine desire to see through clothing?).
I could call and order for free on board. And as much as I want to, as much as my gaze is magnetically sucked to that seat-embedded phone in front of my row-mate, as much as I want to take sawbucks from my slim wallet and put a match to them, I am, somehow, miraculously, able to overcome this temptation.
The airplane banks. There's the Transamerica building. The Golden Gate. Alcatraz. Looking closer, Coit Tower.
My America. Land of the electric desktop waterfall. $179.
Paradise.
We're glad Brian Ames forgot his book.