Author Archives: Beau Woods
Subway Advertizing
Why don’t we hear ads on subway lines? Either from the driver or automated. “The doors are now closing, be sure to pull your gucci handbags away from the doors.” “This stop is Piccadilly Circus. Why not grab a pint at Flescher’s pub?”
Airline Rant
I’m on a flight from London to Atlanta and I didn’t get bumped up to the soft cushy seats that lay back flat so I can’t sleep and am a bit cranky. So some of the small things are starting to bother me.
Like deaf flight attendants. Why are they on planes? The ADA? I asked for red wine with my meal and she reached for the coffee. I said no, red wine. Orange Juice? She asked me. WINE I shouted. She poured me water. People on the opposite side of the plane glared at me. The guy on the aisle grabbed it for me and she handed me a cup.
And why are the stewardesses so homely these days? Airline travel isn’t sexy anymore I guess. Three of the five women on this flight practically make Sinead O’Connor look like Rapunzel with their butch hairstyles. And Tammy Faye apparently taught them to apply makeup, or they’ve been using Homer’s makeup gun. And to whomever is in delta’s HR team, please find a way to get the fat ones out of the air. As a rule of thumb, if they bump into both sides at the same time when walking down the aisles, they’ve got to go!
Which brings me to the meals. They seem like store brand frozen dinners more so than something I’d actually like to eat. I know it’s challenging to make a good meal at 30,000 feet but they seem to do it for the first class passengers. Let me put it this way: when collecting trays the waitresses at the mile-high cafe wear plastic gloves. They’re afraid to touch what I’ve been eating.
I suppose it all goes back to costs and profitability. “you people want cheap tickets” the execs might say. “so we have to keep cutting back costs.” well I suppose that’s true, but we weren’t the ones who started it. When the executives’ pay was raised and amenities started being cut back in the 80s and 90s, we said “I’m not going to pay that much for this crap.” since then it’s been a devolving cycle of executive increases and “cost cutting” measures which have gotten us to this place where the average airline traveler demands prices sub-premium fares comparable to the sub-standard travel conditions offered.
The peasants are revolting.
Magnum & TC
Two road construction workers in Oslo. We’ve got Magnum PI standing around in his short shorts and TC playing with the big fun toys all day.
Magnum: “Come on, TC, just let me fly the chopper a little bit.”
TC: “N-O, no. The last time I let you touch the controls you nearly put my bird in a tree on Kama’a Ma’a.”
Magnum: “That’s not fair, it was windy that day and besides my underwear wasn’t riding up my crack and it made me nervous. I’ll let you drive my Ferrari.”
TC: “It’s Robin Masters’ Ferrari, and it’s in the shop.”
Magnum: “It’ll be out tomorrow, the guy promised me! We both know Higgins is Robin Masters and besides I won a bet with him so I’ve got use of it all week.”
TC: “What was the bet?”
Magnum: “I bet Higgins that I would wear these boss shorts to a wedding reception for a good friend of mine. I bet him I wouldn’t.”
TC: “You mean you wore some other pants?”
Magnum: “No, I skipped the wedding. He’s not that good a friend.”
But seriously, who would wear these shorts to do road construction work on a cool, overcast, windy day in Oslo?
Approachability
I must look like a friendly person. I get approached and asked for directions all the time. Despite the fact that a lot of the time I’m gawking like a tourist or have a camera around my neck. People swerve to the side of the road to talk to me in some foreign tongue. When I ask them to repeat in English they do and I usually have to inform them that I have no clue.
Just tonight in about a half hour I got approached by two people who asked me if I knew the way. One asked me in thickly accented English if I knew where the cinema was and so I pulled out my map and started looking around for it. He thanked me but said he’d rather just ask someone who knew where it was. Where’s the fun in that?
The next person who came up to me asked if I knew the way to eternal life. He was a Scottish Mormon. I didn’t know they existed. This is the second time in a foreign city that I’ve been approached by a missioning Mormon – the first being a kid from Utah missioning in Vilnius – and asked about my opinions on the meaning of life and everything. Maybe I just look like I know what I’m doing and they want to know my secrets.
You’d think that people would know better. I’ve usually got a beard, shaggy hair and am dressed like someone who buys his clothes in some kind of American thrift store or something. And yet Europeans still ask me if I know how to get to the movies and to Heaven. Go figure.
meanderingwoods 