From: curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin)
Subject: Moving Peeve
Originator: curtis@boa.cs.Berkeley.EDU
Organization: CS Dept. Snakepit - Do Not Feed.
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 1992 02:09:39 GMT

Stand back, folks.

After much hustle and bustle I finally have a chance to post
some real Moving Peeves.  I suspect it's going to be ugly.
We're going to have to start by disclaiming liability - and
I _never_ disclaim liability.  It's not the American Way.

So batten down the hatches and put on another pair of
sunglasses.  The cork is off the bottle and we don't want to
be in front of the sandbags when it goes critical.  As the
dungbeetle said to the parachutist: better safe than sorry.

Peeve #1: The airplane flight.

Not the airplane flight itself.  No, folks, what we got here is
one of them _ontological_ peeves.  You can't peeve about
airplane flights themselves.  All airplane flights are awful.
In varying degree but uniform character.  Peeving about
airplane flights, you're just pissing into the wind.  You're
making a whitlock of yourself.  Shoot them down or shut up
about them.

No, the peeve is that _there had to be an airplane flight in
the first place_. This comprises a number of separate, but
equally poignant, peeves:

(a) That I couldn't just buy a mule & a gun and cross the
damned continent on my own two feet, which if you're asking my
opinion, or even if you're not, is the only decent way to
travel.  To hell with the airplane - to hell with the
automobile - to hell with the railroad - to hell with the
stagecoach!  What by the Six Balls of the Holy Trinity is the
use of moving if you don't do it on your own two feet?  What's
the difference between Washington and San Francisco if on the
same day you can eat lunch in one and get caught in rush-hour
traffic in t'other?  I liked the world better when it was
young.  Call me a conservative?  Bah!  I'm no conservative, I'm
a damned atavist!  Neanderthal genes?  I've got Neanderthal
genitals!  Rage against the dying of the light?  I was killing
cave-bears before your po-faced progenitors had a _word_ for
light!  

But this is a great peeve and a futile one, and in the absence
of its resolution it's best to move on to a lesser sibling:


(b) That I couldn't even buy a car & cross the damned continent
on my own four wheels.  The reasons for this, alas, are more
financial than societ...

	What?  Can't afford a car?  What shit.  Richest
	country on earth and he can't afford a car?

Well, see, I don't exactly have a job, either.

	What?  Ain't got a job, then?  Well let me gives you
	a piece of advice, me little friend.  When you ain't
	got you a job, there's one simple thing you do to
	make everything just dandy: you go out and GIT a
	job.  Is that clear?  Do I got to say it a little
	LOUDER?  You got an OUNCE of SENSE in yer haid, boy?

Well, I can't do that either.  See, I'm indentured.

	In-what?  Speak up, boy, I'm a bit hard of hearing.

Well, it's called grad school.

	Oh.  <spits> Well, if you'd told me that in the FIRST
	PLACE I guess I'd not been wastin all this damn time
	TALKIN to you, you posh twit!  <spits and walks away.>

Actually, the problem isn't even that I can't afford a car.  I
can afford a car.  What I can't afford is insurance.  Not in
this damned state, anyhow.  Insurance is such a profitable
business in California that gangs of aliens stage accidents on
the autobahns to collect inflated damages for pain & suffering.
Insurance is such a profitable business in California that
the politicians waddle when they walk - like Macy's floats.
Insurance is such a profitable business in California that
the lawyers have long since given up waddling when they walk
and now wear lead-weighted shoes to avoid rising slowly into
the wild blue yonder, like overinflated Macy's floats.
Insurance is such a profitable business in California that
I'd be paying twice as much in premiums as I did in taxes.
These days, that's saying a lot.


Peeve #2: the airplane flight.

A two-hopper, of course.  BWI to DFW; DFW to Oakland.  On the
first flight I was squashed against the window, buglike, by an
ancient woman of the Jelly Type.  You know the sort.  Maybe not
officially diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but they've still
decayed into more-or-less human mush.  It's TV that does it, I
think; I used to restrict the category to the truly aged, but
now and then I'll see, say, a twenty-five-year-old who fits the
type perfectly.  MTV acceleration - there can be no doubt.
Anyway, they're harmless unless provoked, but a treacherous
obstacle in the Lilliputian confines of a coach cabin.  To go
have a piss I had to step _over_ her; I dread to think what
would have happened if I'd put my foot in the wrong place.

On the second flight I came on the plane, looked along the seat
plaques down the cabin, saw my number, saw right next to it a
head of permed gray hair.  Oh no, I said.  Not another old
bag.  I think I'm going to scream.  I slipped around her, sat
down, and (just for amusement value) tried to strike up a
conversation with her.

And she responded!  Incredible.  A bloody miracle in fact.
She even had a personality.  This was too good to be true.

Which it was.  Coach was overloaded; first class was not;
before we took off, a stewardess ushered the nice old lady
forward and replaced her with a redneck cowboy, of the East
Texas species.  He wore an actual ten-gallon hat - brown
leather, was it?  Or woven buffalo pies?  He was chewing
something - not gum.  I was afraid to ask.  And didn't; talking
to this beast seemed, somehow, semiotically inappropriate.  The
wrong sort of communication.  If I'd had a rope, perhaps, I'd
have tried to lasso him.

We landed uneventfully in Oakland.  Well, actually, it seemed
kind of exciting at the time - as always, with airports by the
water.  JFK - New York is the same way.  You come in with a
majestic circular swoop over the water; the oil tankers are the
first sign of life; then the yachts; then the rowboats; then the
jet-skis; and you end up about ten feet over the waves,
wondering when some dark leviathan is going to stretch out a
tentacle and pull you under plane and all, thinking, "There
better be some LAND coming up REAL SOON NOW..." when the asphalt
slides under and you land with a bump.

Then there's the terminal at Oakland.  Total madhouse.  Oakland
Airport seems to be run by someone who was sacked from the
Guatemalan Army for excessive brutality & corruption.  The PA
howls like a cybernetic dog.  The ushers have all the
helpfulness and charm of a Serbian sniper in Sarajevo.  Even
the pickpockets have their wallets chained to their belts.

So I get off the plane in this miniature corner of Sodom and
went to collect my luggage.  Of which I had a lot.  Consisting
mostly of extremely expensive electronic equipment.  I followed
the signs saying "Baggage Claim" about a half-mile and finally
ended up at... Baggage Claim.  Baggage Claim at Oakland is not
in a secure area.  Baggage Claim at Oakland is in the damned
lobby.  Where any gang of fleabitten bandits just off the banana
truck from El Salvador can rush in and seize your baggage, tags
and all, without so much as a by-your-leave.  Oakland Airport
seems to have been built by someone who was sacked from the
Bulgarian Ministry of Public Works for gross incompetence.

Now, in a situation like this, you might expect that people
would try to mitigate the obvious architectural deficiencies by
making it extremely clear which roundabout your luggage is
coming off, so you can keep a beady eye on that bag from the
moment it gets off the ramp.  And, indeed, there's a three-foot
LED sign above each carousel.

But what does this grafteed Guatemalan put on the LED sign?
The flight number which the circling bags are coming off?  Not
a bloody chance!  No, the signs are displaying nothing but an
endless stream of catchy advertising slogans - "TRY SMILEYS
MASSAGE PARLOR - ITS HOT" - scrolling every which way at an
inch a second.  Except for the sign above one carousel, which
dutifully displays the name and number of an incoming flight
(not mine).  It's the only carousel that's empty.

So what you have is about two thousand people running up and
down a quarter-mile of baggage carousels, diving into the
crowds to check the tags on the circling suitcases and breaking
off when they discover it's not the right flight ("Marge?  Were
we on Air Papua 742, out of Port Moresby?")  This presents a
remarkably convincing facsimile of the Battle of Waterloo,
or perhaps a particularly rambunctious rugby match.

Luckily I managed to find my bags and transport them intact to
the nearest taxi stand.  Divine intervention, I am certain, was
involved.

This peeve will be continued.

c
Newsgroups: alt.peeves