On the other hand..
I travel from time to time on commercial aircraft, and occasionally
I get upgraded to first or business class.
Each time this happens, a flood of superiority and entitlement washes
over me, and I immediately regard the unfortunate unwashed masses in economy,
with an air of contempt. On those occasions when I do get elevated from cattle
class, I prefer those aircraft where you turn left into the premium cabin and you
don’t have to physically interact passengers as they traipse back to seat 33E
by the toilets. As a first class
passenger, I shouldn’t have to look at their envious faces or risk having my
first gin and tonic spilt by some clumsy oik, with no air miles and too much
carry-on luggage. On the other hand,
when I do find myself in possession of a ticket in economy comfort (or whatever
they call it to make it sound more compelling), which is to say 90% of the
time, I immediately become a Communist.
Staring with revolutionary fervor at those sitting in the wide leather
seats, with their Bloody Mary’s and Wall Street Journals. Can’t you even dress
a little better if you are going to hog all the nice seats? I think sneeringly. I am Che Guevara, the proletariat,
the worker, and you are the greedy bosses who don’t deserve the nice friendly flight
attendants.
I believe it was the comedian
Steven Wright who said “On the one hand I am the complete works of Shakespeare,
and on the other hand, I am a
vibrator ad in the back of Hustler magazine” (which tells you how long ago this
joke was told) Truth be told, the view I have on life and my fellow travelers comes
down to my personal situation at that very moment. Given a choice, when considering my
circumstances, economic or otherwise, I tend to side with most important constituent
- myself.
As a plucky pedestrian, for example,
I despise anyone behind the wheel of a car. The idiots who hold the blind and
arrogant assumption that they “own the road” because they pay gas taxes, doesn’t
wash me with me, I can tell you. Even if I was attempting to cross a busy
freeway, on foot, during rush hour, at dusk, with poor visibility, I would
absolutely blame any driver who ran me over. On the other hand, being an assertive and progressive driver with tight
deadlines, coffee to drink and a podcast to listen to, pedestrians are merely
Wildebeest to be separated from the herd. Of course, when I am riding my bicycle on the
road, the other two groups constantly
raise my ire. My ascendency now stems from the fact that I am exercising and saving the Planet. (Earth that is).
Pedestrians may be ambulatory, but they are not wearing spandex (mostly) and
they are not perspiring like me. I am
righteous, environmentally conscious, and you, gas guzzling driver are merely
adding to global warming. Why don’t you just burn down a rain forest while you
are it – you Neanderthal. On the other hand, cyclists are so annoying,
with their holier-than-thou attitude and riding two or three abreast on narrow
roads. Good lord I try to be gracious but some days I find myself yelling at
someone because they are not the sub-culture that I Identify with at that very
minute.
Previous readers of this blog may remember
that I am immigrant to the United States. No – it wasn’t the Mayflower or even a
wagon train across the prairie, however I did take a perilous 8-hour flight
from London to Baltimore, in coach! I
bring skills, good hair, (well it was then) and I speak English. Letting me in to the country was a no-
brainer - right? The US was right to
take a chance on hard working folks like me and the country is just a little bit
brighter with me in it. On the other hand,
those immigrants scrambling from all over the world to get in, should absolutely
be kept out. They are certainly lazier
than me, probably criminally-minded, and they don’t speak English like wot I
do. Why take a chance with people like that? They didn’t have to complete anywhere near the
amount of paperwork that I was forced to do and don’t have even the faintest
appreciation of Bluegrass music.
So when (annoying)
people say you should look at it from someone’s else point of view, I say where
is the fun in that? I only want to see
it from my point of view, because that is where the wisdom lies surely. Besides, it means that I won’t live up to my
Chinese zodiac sign of the Rooster which proclaims that I am “selfish and
eccentric”. They are every perceptive,
those Chinese. On the other hand..
