Dismissible Curmudgeon Rant

I just opened the latest version of Bon Appetite and spent the next few minutes swearing and throwing away little cardstock mailers that fall out of magazines like dandruff. I hate them. And I hate the magazine for including them. I would gladly pay an extra fee for each magazine if I didn’t have to deal with all the crap that falls out of it. Even magazines like Cuisine at Home and Cook’s Illustrated which claim to be ad-free are infested with the damnable cardstock hell spawn. Has anyone actually saved one of those and sent them in? (If so, you’re part of the problem. Hang your head in shame).

Dawn says she would gladly pay an extra fee to receive fashion magazines without fragrance samples. No wonder either… each one of those magazines reeks to high heaven.

I was tempted to make the claim that I get upset when the advertising in my media distracts from the content. But I don’t think that’s the case, or rather, that is just more of a symptom. I think as I get older I become ever less tolerant of whatever crazy thing I decide is irritating me and think I should be able to buy my way out of it. I suppose that I am the ultimate product of a consumer based economy.

Thinking back I seem to remember going on a rant after the last time Dawn and I bought airline tickets. We were picking out the seats and I was distressed that the back corner of the plane was already taken. While I often complain about sitting in the back of the plane because of the noise, and having to stare at the crotches of people waiting to use the lavatory, and the fact that you are literally the last person off the plane when trying to make a connection, I kind of like that you limit the number of people that can sit around you. In the middle of the plane you are exposed on all sides. In the back of the plane, in a two person row, there are only two people sitting in front of you and one person next two you across the aisle. That guarantees that a small kid will not be kicking my seat the entire trip….plus the odds of having to sit next to a baby are drastically reduced.

I believe I was telling Dawn that I thought that airlines ought to offer to charge a fee to guarantee you will not sit next to a minor. When people buy tickets they have to reveal whether or not they are traveling with a minor. I haven’t looked up the statistics, but I think that most passengers aren’t minors, so the odds are pretty good that I won’t have to sit next to a minor….but I’m willing to pay an extra $5 to take the odds from pretty good to really good. I thought it seemed like a good deal for the airline companies. In most cases they won’t have to do anything to collect and extra $5 fee. And they like fees. All they really have to do is invent a new color of seat to show that some seat options are restricted to people not traveling with minors…which is the majority of travelers (I suspect).

Dawn pointed out that it would cause logistical issues when the plane started to get full and the airline wouldn’t want the bad press of kicking little kids of off planes. I’m a reasonable (if not intolerant) guy. I acknowledge the fact that they need to serve people with kids too. My solution was that if I paid $5 to not sit next to a kid (and I’m talking left, right, front and back seats) and they place a kid there then the airline company refund me $20. I think it’s a good solution. It doesn’t tie the hands of the airline company in the situation of a full plane, and at the same time acknowledges that seating a kid next to me is suboptimal and gives me a $15 “we’re sorry” when it invariable happens.

Whoa, where did that come from? I guess I’ve been storing up my curmudgeon delusional ranting.