Anyone out there remember when you could smoke on transatlantic flights? Weren’t those the days? Now, I was only a casual smoker then but I recall that one of the hardest things about being a smoker was getting a smoker seat on a transatlantic flight. As the years went by and the anti-smoker campaigns started to take hold, the airlines kept reducing the seats available for smokers and there you have probably one of the only real, functional examples of supply and demand in contemporary western predatorial capitalistic society.
Luckily, I learned early that if you’re gonna be fixed on something then you better know the alternatives to getting it in your system. As far as I’m concerned, the best way to get nicotine into your system is to chew tobacco. That’s right. Redman or Skoal, Beechnut or Copenhagen. Although I preferred a chew to smoke, there was always a need to light-up, especially since I had a really cool collection of Zippo lighters. Also, I’m one of them movie-influenced-dudes that thinks the world of only the “act” of lighting a cigarette – I was never much for inhaling.
When the airlines finally banned all transatlantic smoking I was ready for it. I had my chewing tobacco and a small spittoon in the form of a returnable plastic coke bottle wrapped in duct-take with a plastic cap. This was a make-shift, cheap spittoon but very functional. The tape, for those of you who don’t get it, was to hide the nasty appearance of what’s inside. So the smoking ban didn’t have that much of effect on me.
Anywho.
You may or may not know it (by reading this blog), but not only do I have few friends, I’m not very personable. It’s usually why I always try and get an isle seat on a plane. For me an isle seat makes getting away faster. Now. I’ve crossed the Atlantic so many times that it ain’t funny. Seriously. I know there are corporate morons out there that cross it more than I, but I crossed ALWAYS in economy and more than not, I paid at some discount travel agent – which, if you know anything about the airline industry, the “how” you buy your ticket is indicated in the form of a code on the ticket so that airline service personnel can treat you like a sub-human.
One particular transatlantic flight will always remain in my memory and it contains two happenings. One, after choking on a chew – which I rarely do – I actually spit tobacco juice on the pants leg of a fat man and after I did that I never heard from him. Two, I had to book the flight on early notice which meant I had limited seat choice.
I gave up on the poor and arrogant service of US carriers way back but this time I was doomed to fly yet one more time with Delta-USAir-United-whatever. The US airline industry is really one single company, there is no competition and there is certainly no originality or service. The reality is, that’s basically twenty-first century American business in general.
My biggest fear of flying was having to sit next to people that would try and sell me something. So I asked at the check-in counter if they could give me an isle seat and if they at least wouldn’t seat me next to sales people. The check-in agent giggled. On this particular flight I got stuck in the middle row, in a middle seat. And to make it even worse: I sat next to that which makes America – especially bumfuck America – really obnoxious. America barely manufacturers anything anymore and as far as the so-called “workforce” is concerned, it’s full of nothing but compulsive behaviorist computer programmers or “project managers” or Mc-Jobs or ugly and useless civil servants and last but not least… sales personnel.
Aghast.
I was given a seat on that flight next to Marge and Michael from bumfuck America. My designated seat was actually between the two but we managed, believe it or not, to arrange that they sit together. And what did M & M do for a living? They were selling some kind of new-fangled pyramid-like time-sharing krapp for cellular network nodes. Or something like that. They were in Germany at a convention that was trying to sell the same shit to Europeans. The thing about bumfuck America and the American’s ability to make a living out of doing almost nothing is that they’re able to regurgitate snake-oil and people buy-in to it almost every time – no matter where they’re from. Thank goodness I’ve moved far away from that krapp. The sad thing is, it’s been catching up to me ever since.
There’s really not much to say about the conversation with M&M except that even before the plane took off they tried really hard to recruit me into their world. After we reached cruising altitude I took out a chew and spittoon and had me a “dip” as the two sellers of freedom and wealth kept talking to the wind.
“What do you mean, you’re not interested in getting rich. Ha, ha, ha,” M asked me.
“Material wealth doesn’t interest me,” I said. “I’m a writer.”
In the beginning they felt bad for me. But then it turned into their American challenge.
“Say. You earn money at that,” M asked.
I responded with a “not really” and hoped that would end the judgment. But they thought it was just a-tickle that an American would actually move to Germany, not work regularly and then say that he’s a writer. When they heard that I spoke such good German bells started ringing in their small brains. I asked if either would like to have a chew and held up the taped-up bottle.
“Naw. You go right ahead, though, we’re used to that back home,” the other M said.
They had moments of small talk between themselves which always lead to them coming back to me. It’s amazing to me how people cannot take a hint – as I had my spitting head buried the whole time in a book.
“So… you don’t actually make a living with that writing stuff, do you then,” M asked.
“But you can speak German real well and all you do is write? You seem like a bright fellow. You should get into sales. How do you keep doing something that gives you no success? That don’t seem right,” the other M said.
“Well, perhaps it’s not right or perhaps I measure ’success’ differently than you. I’ll certainly never be able to buy a house,” I say. “Tell me. How many garages does your house have,” I asked.
“Four. Detached,” M says. “But what’s the sense of writing if you can’t make any money at it?”
“I believe in culture, I also believe in creativity. I’m very fulfilled when I write,” I said.
“Well, bust my britches,” M says. “If that don’t just take it all. He’s an elitist. You mean to tell me that you don’t really work, I mean, do anything, you just… write,” the other M asks.
“I suppose you could look at it that way. I’m kind of blocked right now, you know,” I said and spit in my spittoon, recapping it.
“Where we’re from you can take something for that blockage,” the other M says and giggles.
“Have you ever seen a theater play,” I asked.
“Maybe when I was in school,” M says. “We don’t need that sort of thing. We work for a living, you know.”
“Do you have children,” I asked.
“Of course we have children, we’ve been married for eighteen years. Our oldest is helping us with our business. The two younger ones are still in school.”
“You don’t want them growing up without any cultivation, do you,” I naively asked.
“I want them growing up and having it better than me,” M says. “I don’t reckon you can buy anything with cultivation.”
“Yeah,” the other M adds. “I just don’t know if writing is a good thing. The last time I was in a book store there were too many books. Couldn’t make anything of it.”
“I know what you mean there,” I said. “Why were you there, then,” I asked.
“Wanted to get me one of them, you know, ‘how-to’ books. On selling. They can be very helpful. The good ones come with cassettes so you don’t even have to read it. You know, you should get yourself a copy of… What’s that book,” M asks the other M.
“How to win friends and influence people,” the other M says.
“Say, why don’t you write a book like that? It’s a bit out-dated. Or. Say. Here’s an idear. Write a book on how to get along with these Germans. Don’t get me wrong. They sure are nice people. They work hard. Hell, we’re making a mint off them. But….”
I grabbed my backpack and the in-flight reading material within and took out a copy of…
*
“You see, it’s not that there are too many writers or too many books,” I say. “There’s just not enough creativity in the world. Which means all that’s left to do is sell something. I’ll have nothing to do with what you’re selling, thank you.”
I looked at them both and hoped that their instincts would finally kick-in and help them realize that their presence was a trial and their brainless albeit wealthy existence, like modern-day society, was/is an insult to what it means to be human.
“You certainly are good a tootin’ your own horn, I’ll give you that,” M says.
“Thank you,” I say. “If you’ll excuse me…”
I looked around the cabin of the plane for an open seat and found one near the back. I gathered all my stuff (notebooks, books, spittoon, backpack) and just as I was about to leave a large fellow was navigating his way hurriedly down the isle. As he approached me I was just crossing the seats to enter the isle. M&M were in the isle to let me out, blocking it. We packed the isle and the large fellow that was moving fast said ‘excuse me, please” at least three times when he arrived at the blockage. M told him to hold a sec. I got my elbows out of the way so the big fellow could get by and one M was negotiating back to her seat. Here the big fellow thought he could just pass and started to push his way through, shoving me and M up against the side of the seats. The large fellow hit one of my elbows and that caused a slight ricochet of extremities. This lead to me dropping a book. When M was jolted one of his hands swung around and swatted my falling book. The big fellow noticed the havoc he caused and, just as he did while navigating the entire isle, he stopped and turned to me and said, “excuse me, please, but I have to get to the bathroom now!” He was pale and beads of sweat were gathering on his forehead. I tried to turn around again to squeeze against the seats so that he could squeeze by me. M was grabbing for my book that had fallen in his seat. For whatever reason, M lost grip on the book and it once again flew through the air. In my hastiness to catch the book it bounced off the back of the seat in front of me and hit me in the throat. I started coughing and turned away towards the isle. To no avail. As the large fellow was pushing his way through the chaos tobacco juice landed all over the back of his pants but it didn’t seem to matter as he pushed through the isle and ran to rear of the plane saying “excuse me, please; excuse me, please; excuse me, please.”
I gathered myself, my books and wished the M&M’s a nice day. I took another middle seat at the rear of the plane between a Bulgarian and a German and was able to finish reading my book. I thought about how cultivated, ultimately, the large fellow was that pushed his way with so many excuse me’s through the isle so that he could throw-up in the bathroom. About two hours before landing the Bulgarian was bored and asked if he could try some chewing tobacco. I warned him that it’s not an easy thing to start and he should be careful. He shook off my warning and by the time we landed he was as a pale and sweating as the large fellow with the pants full of my spit.
* “Getting Along With the Germans” by Bob Larson is a very funny and enjoyable read if you can still get a copy. The book is prefaced by Manfred Rommel.
-tgs-
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