Pinny's Place

A marketing guru with some wild ideas

Thursday, June 22, 2006

the value of being vertically challenged


Warning: the following post is probably not very politically correct. Read at your own risk.

Sitting on the plane and I cannot help but notice the value of being overweight when you are in need of sleep. First, our heftier friends naturally have space because they always get the middle seat, then they rest their arms on the armrest (I cannot believe Seinfeld never had a show on wrestling for the armrest with your fellow passenger - that would have been a classic). Well, in the case of the people that are vertically challenged, there is no contest: you should be happy to get ¼ of your own seat.

Then comes the sleeping part. Today the person next to me has her head resting perfectly on her chest like it was designed for that, resting so comfortably on her two pillows (if I tried to rest my head on my chest I would need to have been doing yoga for 10 years). Then she starts the Snoring, which as they say, takes the cake (and in fact, she ate mine as well). If I had a bull horn or a microphone on me, I would have placed it under her nose to amplify the sound even more. Can she not hear herself?!
After 10 minutes of feeling her vibrations, I started to fantasize about me ripping out her tonsils or whatever makes you snore. I’d look it up but I can’t google it now (Something interesting, Word thinks google is misspelled how ironic).

So my suggestion for all those economy class passengers is this: when you check in, make sure to request who you are sitting next to and ask how much they weigh. Another airline suggestion would be to weigh the person not just the luggage. It reminds me of the time when I once flew and as a joke, requested from the check-in person “who am I sitting next to”. She said “Mr.
Smith”, which I mentally noted. As I boarded the plane, I looked down at the older gentleman sitting there and I greeted him, “Good morning Mr. Smith”.
He looked down at his shirt to see if he is wearing a tag that said his name. To prolong the joke I told him, “We are watching you”. The whole flight Mr. Smith did not relax for a moment, even after I explained to him that I was joking. Funny, I thought it was totally hysterical.

Karaoke @#$^(&


I recently traveled to the Island (St. Vincent) and learnt something interesting about Karaoke. In the first place, whoever came up with the idea that everyone, including those people who sound like my grandmother’s dying dog, can actually sing just because they think they sound like Pavarotti in their showers? My belief is there needs to be a “mercy” rule where the crowd can cut the song off (or the real singer rises from his grave) and grab the mic and use it to clobber the Karaoke singers. Imagine what the composers and singers think when their songs are being butchered in front of a crowd of drunken businessmen.

I was told that Karaoke comes from “carry a key”. Well, let me tell you, that night in a quiet bar on a roof top in St. Vincent there was not a lot of carrying going on. The first girl to sing was so off-key that the DJ “accidentally” (right) shut off the power and blamed it on the rain. I totally understand now why there is drinking going on with this past-time.
My first take was that the people needed to lose their inhibitions and get the guts to go up and sing. However, now I really understand: it’s for the listeners so we don’t have to hear the off-key singers. Sort of like being the last guy in the bar and the girl who would never catch your eye under normal circumstances after 10 drinks is looking really attractive (so what she is missing some teeth and has a stump foot). The drinking is definitely for the benefit of the listeners.