Ear Wax In The Fog

When you talk about the postderegulation airline industry, the three issues that inevitably arise are smoking, fog, and earwax. We’ll take them individually.

Follow me closely here. You know those little earphones they give you on airplanes so you can listen to old Bill Cosby routines? OK, let’s assume that 20 million people have flown on earphone flights in the past 15 years. Let’s further assume that each person leaves one-sixteenth of an ounce of earwax on these phones (this is an average, of course; Nancy Reagan leaves much less). This means that in the last 15 years alone, the airlines have collected nearly 600 tons. Do you have any idea how large a blob that makes? Neither do I, so I called the folks at the Miami Public Library, who did a little research and informed me that it was the most disgusting question they had ever been asked.

My question is this: Why do the airlines—why does any nonmilitary organization—need a blob of earwax that large? My personal theory is that they’re going to drop it on the radar apparatus at O’Hare Airport in Chicago, just so they can see the looks on the faces of passengers all over America when the ticket-counter agents say: “I’m afraid your flight has been cancelled due to earwax on the radar at O’Hare.” Any problem at O’Hare, even a minor plumbing malfunction, inevitably paralyzes air travel all over the free world. Nobody really knows why this is, but if you ask the ticket agent, he’ll come up with something just to drive you away: “Your flight is supposed to use the plane from flight 407, which is due in from Houston, only it couldn’t take off because the crew was supposed to arrive on flight 395 from O’Hare, but that plane never got to O’Hare because the captain, the handsome, brooding Mark Crandall, had seen Nikki and Paul leave the party together arm in arm and in a rage of jealousy, had decided to seduce Paul’s former lover Brenda, unaware that she had just found out about Steven’s fatal liver disease. So we’re looking at a delay of at least two hours.”

But the airlines won’t use the earwax just yet. No, that’s their trump card, and they won’t play it until more people wise up about the fog. I figured it out several years ago. See, I live in an area that is never blanketed by fog. People often remark on this at parties. “Say what you will,” they remark, “but this area is never blanketed by fog, ha ha!” Except when I am trying to get back home from a distant airport, at which time it is always pea soup. “I’m afraid your destination is completely fogged in, Mr. Barry,” the ticket agent says, in the tone of voice you use when somebody else’s destination is fogged in and you’re going home in a half-hour to have a drink and watch Johnny Carson.

Here’s how they do it: They have an agent permanently assigned to lurk in the bushes outside my home, and when he sees me walk out the door carrying a suitcase, he gets on the walkie-talkie. “Looks like he’s going to try to make a round trip via airplane again!” he whispers. This alerts his superiors back at airline headquarters that they should stop drilling holes into the heads of small furry woolen creatures and arrange to have a dense fog blanket transferred down from Canada via weather satellite.

Ask yourself this question: If Charles Lindbergh, flying with no instruments other than a bologna sandwich, managed to cross the Atlantic and land safely on a runway completely covered with French people, why are today’s airplanes, which are equipped with radar and computers and individualized liquor bottles, unable to cope with fog? Are they concerned about passenger safety? Then why not let the passengers decide? Why not get on the public-address system and say: “Attention passengers. Your destination is very foggy. We think you’ll make it, but there’s always a chance you’ll crash on a remote mountaintop and be eaten by wolves. Your other option is to stay here in the airport for God knows how long, sitting in these plastic seats and eating $3.50 cheese sandwiches manufactured during the Truman administration. What do you say?” The gate agents would have to leap up on the counter to avoid being trampled by the hordes barging onto the plane.

Which leads us to the question of whether smoking should be allowed on airplanes. The Founding Fathers, who had bales of foresight, specified in the U.S. Constitution that people could smoke on airplanes, but they had to sit near the toilets. Now, however, there’s a move afoot to ban smoking altogether on flights that last less than two hours. The cigarette industry is against this ban, their argument being that there is no Hard Evidence that cigarettes are anything short of wonderful, according to the highly skilled research scientists that the cigarette industry keeps in small darkened cages somewhere. Another strong anti-ban argument was raised by Congresssman Charlie Rose of North Carolina, who warned the Civil Aeronautics Board recently that people would sneak into the washrooms to smoke and might start fires. “There’s a significant problem if they were to go into washrooms for a smoke and forget where the used paper towels are stored,” observed Congressman Rose, who evidently feels that many smokers have extremely small brains.

But I think he has a point. I think that if the CAB decides to ban smoking, it should require the airlines to install smoke detectors in the washrooms, so that if a person sets one off, it will activate an unusually powerful toilet mechanism that will flush the smoker right out of the plane. Of course, if I know the airlines, they’ll rig it so he lands on the radar apparatus at O’Hare.

1987: Look Back In Horror

January

2—In College Bowl action, the University of Miami loses the national championship to Penn State when Vinny Testaverde, after selecting the

“History” category, identifies World War II as “a kind of fish.”

3—Oral Roberts tells his followers that unless they send him $4.5 million by the end of the month, God will turn him into a hypocritical money-grubbing slime bag.

5—In response to growing pressure from the United States, the government of Colombia vows to track down its major drug dealers and, if necessary, remove them from the Cabinet.

8—The Federal Aviation Administration announces that, in response to a routine questionnaire, 63 percent of the nation’s air traffic controllers stated that their primary career goals was “to defeat the forces of the Planet Wambeeno.”

10—In the ongoing war against the federal deficit, the Reagan administration submits the first-ever $1 trillion budget.

14—In New York City, officials of the justice Department’s Organized Crime Task Force announce that Anthony “Grain Embargo” DiPonderoso and Jimmy “Those Little Pins They Put in New Shirts” Zooroni have agreed to enter the Federal Nickname Exchange Program.

16—In his first press conference since 1952, President Reagan, asked by reporters to comment on persistent allegations that he is “out of touch,” responds: “Thanks, but I just had breakfast.”

18—The People’s Republic of China announces that “Deng Xiaoping” means “Big Stud Artichoke.”

21—The Audi Corporation is forced to recall 250,000 cars after repeated incidents wherein parked Audis, apparently acting on their own, used their mobile phones to purchase stocks on margin.

26—President Reagan tells Iran-contra scandal investigators that he “might have” approved the sale of arms to Iran.

28—In the Middle East, Syria has its name legally changed to “Jordan.” A welcome calm settles over Beirut as the six remaining civilians are taken hostage.

30—In Washington, the Internal Revenue Service unveils the new, improved W-4