HOT TIPS FOR AIR TRAVEL

1. Don’t.

If you must, or if you are prodigiously dim, then:

2. Bring a cabbage. This is for shredding with your teeth so you don’t bite anyone, or, alternately, chucking at someone’s head.

3. Try wearing a thong, pants made of mosquito netting, and bare feet in Concourse C of CLT. I have not done this but one girl did and that gave me something to think about other than the fact that the raw red onion shaving on my plate was the highest performing food item. Was she cold? How old would she be when her skin finally threw in the towel? Did she know people wear clothes in airports? Did it matter? Should we all just be mostly naked? WAIT HOLD UP ARE WE ALL NAKED UNDER OUR CLOTHES

4. Do not under any circumstances make eye contact with a TSA agent. Think of nothing, say nothing, look nowhere, and believe in no gods while they handle you or YOU WILL BE DEPORTED

5. If you must visit the Customer Service Desk, first hire a hypnotist to make you believe you are someone else and/or by the ocean until it’s over.

6. Plan on arriving home two to six days after the time listen on your return ticket, to a different airport, with no possessions, scurvy, and only a vague sense of what year it might be.

7. Wear a giant hot dog costume. This way someone might smile at you. Someone who likes hot dogs.

8. Bring your bagpipes and play them. This is your big chance: in airports, everyone hates you already anyway. YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE / SEIZE THE CONCOURSE DEAR PIPER

9. When you hear a Bonnie Raitt song playing by Tequileria, sing along. No one cares or notices. You will feel 17% better about the final leg of your flight being delayed by forty days and forty nights.

10. Remember: everything is satire. All of it. You are living in a satire. Glance over your shoulder to scan for SNL actors. If you’re quick, you may catch a glimpse of one disappearing behind a motorized kiosk for Vineyard Vines moccasins. And, if you lose a tooth when you trip and fall over your counterphobic roller bag, the Satire Fairy will leave a silver dollar under your pillow. **Update: silver dollar now scheduled to arrive 11:53 next Tuesday. **Update: silver dollar now scheduled to arrive 3:47 March 41st, 2056. **Update—

**WE NOW INTERRUPT THIS BULLETIN TO BRING YOU A BONUS TRANSCRIPT FROM THE CUSTOMER SERVICE DESK**

Me: Hi.

Customer Support:

Me: I’m scheduled on the 6pm and I’m wondering if there’s room on—

Customer Support: ARE YOU TRYING TO FLY SAME DAY STANDBY

Me: …?

Customer Support: IM GOING TO NEED YOUR LICENSE

Me: I don’t think it would be standby— see, I had confirmed, paid seats—

Customer Support: THEN I WILL SAY AGAIN IM GOING TO NEED YOUR LICENSE

Me: <digs license out, hands it over>

Customer Support: LET ME SEE IF YOURE <looks me up and down like garbage heap> ELIGIBLE

<three days pass>

Customer Support: YOU ARE NOT ELIGIBLE

Me: … <takes license back, puts in wallet> …

Customer Support: <looks like she’s been asked to eat a medium-sized turd>

Customer Support: DONT YOU DARE BE BE MAD AT ME I CANT CHANGE WHAT THE SYSTEM TELLS ME IS ALLOWED

Me: Excuse me?

Customer Support: <stares at computer screen, holds perfectly still for an unnerving amount of time>

Me: <leaves quickly to see if there’s someone, ANYONE, else to talk to. There is not. Returns to Customer Service Desk.>

Me: Hello.

Customer Service:

Me: I think what I failed to make clear is that I was originally scheduled on an earlier connection, but I missed it because my first flight was delayed by two hours. I’ve been rescheduled onto the 6pm for my second leg, but I’m wondering if it’s possible to get on this one, right over here, that leaves in twenty minutes.

Customer Service: IM GOING TO NEED YOUR ID

Me: k

Customer Service: BUT I PROMISE NOT TO SNATCH IT LIKE YOU DID TO ME

Me: …?

Me: <hands the ID>

Customer Service: <types for sixteen hours.>

<My feet go numb. I work hard during hours 6-12 not to have any expression on my face.>

Customer Service: HERE IS YOUR BOARDING PASS

Me: Thank you for your help.

Customer Service:

Me: I’m not sure what went wrong here. I’m sorry if I came across as rude earlier —

Customer Service: YOU CANT APOLOGIZE NOW IT ALREADY HAPPENED ITS TOO LATE

Me: Jeez, that’s really bad news for the world if that’s the way it works.

Customer Service: IT IS

Me:

Customer Service:

Fin

**WE NOW RETURN TO HOT TIPS FOR AIR TRAVEL**

11. See #1. Consider it more thoroughly this time. Your living room is not so bad, actually, and your bathroom is truly stellar.

12. If you find that you are moved to apologize for some reason, do not. Instead, perform a long tap dance in your winter boots, plug your nose with a lifted pinky, and show the whites of your eyes while you yell RUTABAGA until a path slowly clears in front of you.

13. If you find that you need to get on a flight that you are not yet listed on, do not under any circumstances speak to anyone. Simply point to the boarding screen and tuck a thousand dollar bill behind the tiny nametag of the gate agent, which has been miniaturized so that you cannot read it without being close enough to smell them.

14. Strap a small, warm mammal to each of your forearms. These are to wave in front of the restroom fixtures so that the automatic faucets and soap dispensers will identify you as something other than a corpse or sheaf of cardboard.

15. If you must talk with someone, talk with someone who doesn’t speak English. Charades are an underutilized form of despair prevention.

16. Think of the videogame noises coming from behind you at 1am as a rewards sound-bed for each time you start to doze off— Great work, Droolio! Bizongo, a snoozle! Beepity-beep Zoing, and Sadneck WINS!

muah,

Sadneck, winner.

The shark fin of satire stalks our mammalian comforts