It's good to have an office, though sometimes I work better in what an anthropologist might call a "highly-restricted environment," i.e., a bus, a train, an airport lounge, some transition zone like a waiting room, or a cubicle in a public library.
What nettles me is that our society is moving toward removing the privacy of those "highly-restricted environments."
For example, I was on a US Air jet from Raleigh to La Guardia. After the usual in-flight nonsense, I settled into scribbling in my notebook. Without warning, personal TV screens dropped from the ceiling, clicked on, and began to play a loud infomercial about how wonderful it was to be flying on US Air.
"Son of a bluetongued bonbon!" I grumbled, closing my notebook.
"Welcome to US Air! We hope that you are enjoying your flight. Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda ... music ... yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda!"
Ten minutes of shiny happy infomercial. The screens darkened and retracted. I returned to my notebook. I wrote a sentence or two.
Again the TVs descended. "Welcome to US Air! We hope that you are enjoying your flight. Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda ... music ... yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda!"
Now I complained loudly, but nobody beyond my immediate neighbors noticed. No Air Marshals rose to grapple me to the floor. Few seemed peeved at being force-fed commercials. Eventually, TVs flipped shut.
About thirty minutes later, as I attempted to describe the lights of Philadelphia passing on my left, the TVs dropped and boomed.
"Welcome to US Air! We hope that you are enjoying your flight. Yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda ... music ... yadda-yadda-yadda-yadda!"
That's when I realized what I had to do. What I should do. What must be done. What we all must do. Yet, given my character, what I would never, ever, ever do.
Carry a tube of super glue in my shirt pocket. When the TV screens comes down, apply a thick layer of glue to the edges of the TV screen. Smear it on thick. That way, when the screen retracted and, after a twenty-minute pause, tried to descend again, my screen would be stuck. Its tiny motor would scream and whine against the adhesion keeping it from administering tele-torture. Maybe smoke would pour from the failing motor. An emergency would be declared, perhaps an unscheduled landing. I would be led away in handcuffs, laughing hysterically. A brief triumph. My cell in Gitmo would have the same TV. It would play the same infomercials.
Yours, Kropotkin Q. Coach Infrequent Flier ------------------------------------------------------------------ To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off, digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
