Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Best Outfit for a Flight?

Lowbrow Answer: A Sweatsuit and a Neck Pillow
Maybe traveling from Boston to Albuquerque was a perilous adventure during the Civil War, but it's the 21st century for Christ's sake. The planes have heat. They serve you Pepsi in mid-air. It's pretty cushy. We're not sitting on wooden benches, helping to peddle the 747. Come on, the whole flight is only going to take like five hours. You're not crossing the country on a 9-month expedition with Lewis and Clark.

And don't get me started on this neck pillow shit. What the hell has happened to us? We used to kill bears with our hands and build houses with rocks and slaughter thousands of Native Americans for fun. Has it really come to this? We need a semi-circle cushion to help us sleep sitting up? If this continues, one day we'll be relying on some kind of Hello Kitty-themed robot from Japan to chew all our food for us and kiss us goodnight.


Middlebrow Answer: High Heels and a Tight Skirt
Hey sweetheart. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but this isn't a frat house. There aren't any drunk football players to feel you up by the pool table or hump you arrhythmically on a makeshift basement dance floor. This is an airplane. Nobody wants to chat with you about how great it is to be an English major. All the flight attendants are gay. Take off your Manolo Blahnik's and wipe all that makeup off your face. Trollop.

The guy version of this is even worse. Nothing like a douchebag in an Armani suit and CK One sitting next to you all the way to New York. Yes, I see you're on your way to a business meeting. Good for you. Let me guess. You work in consulting. You attended some yuppie white kid college like Williams or Princeton and now you spend your time moving other people's money around until you save enough of your own to buy a big house and a golden retriever and a wife whose first name is "Grier." I hope your plane crashes. Into Princeton.


Highbrow Answer: Jeans and a T-Shirt
Yes, flying somewhere was a huge deal in 1984. It's not anymore. Get over it. At this point, an airplane is just a big Toyota Camry with wings. Are you really going to get dressed up for a Toyota Camry with wings? Is that how pathetic your life has become? Have you no better occasion to make a big deal out of than a flight to Cleveland? That's sad. Like, Elmo dying of Syphilis sad.

The joy of wearing jeans and a T-shirt on an airplane is that nobody knows anything about you. If you're wearing a suit, we know you're some Wall Street asshole. If you're wearing sandals with socks, we know you're some yocal from Indiana who hasn't been in one of them there flying machines since 1991. Jeans and a T-shirt is understated. You could be anyone. You could be flying to a meeting with the president or a play rehearsal with Johnny Depp or a T-Shirt and Jeans convention. The possibilities are endless.

3 comments:

  1. Right on... My personal favorite is the excruciatingly sunburned who insist on wearing their "resort collection" until after the plane lands in whatever god-forsaken frozen tundra city they call home. I'm talking mesh shirts with bathing suits visible underneath and flip-flops.

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  2. "You're not crossing the country on a nine month expedition"

    This is true, unless you are in Inception.

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  3. I hate to break it to you, but neck pillows are SO 5 years ago. Now it's all about the Skyrest. It's a beautiful thing to behold. http://www.skyrest.com/home

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