Personal essays
They’re everywhere
Happy Anniversary
I kind of missed it the first two times.
As I borded my plane the gate agent wished me a happy anniversary.
The woman welcoming me on board also wished me a happy anniversary.
After I was seated, a stewardess came over to me and asked, “Is this you?”
She pointed to my name on a screen.
I said “yes” hoping that that meant an upgrade.
Nope.
“Happy Mileage Plus anniversary,” she said, “you’ve been a member for thirty years.”
Must have been all of the years with Continental. After United bought them my history must have moved over.
I thought two things - first, the last time United congratulated me was on becoming a Gold member earlier this year. That probably sounds better than, “you aren’t getting Premier 1K this year.”
The other thing I thought of was a nun joke - if you’re offended by such things, you may want to skip down a bit.
The Nun Joke
There was an Irish comedian who had a show on British television in the 1970s - his name was Dave Allen.
I don’t remember much about him except for this joke he told.
A nun is walking down a corridor at the convent one morning when she comes across another nun who giggles and says, “you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
The nun doesn’t think much of it and continues walking to mass when she passes a second nun who giggles and says, “you woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
The nun looks quizically at the giggling nun and continues on her way.
She comes upon the mother superior who looks her up and down.
The poor nun can barely contain herself. She rolls her eyes and says, “don’t you tell me that I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
“No sister,” says the mother superior, “I just wondered why you are wearing the bishop’s shoes.”
Threes around us
I don’t know why jokes and stories work in threes - they just do.
The first two set up the situation that is paid off in the third.
People don’t die in threes - we just group deaths that way.
Even lists of names work well in threes. The lawfirm of Dewey, Cheatem, and Howe. The Warner Brothers (and sister) Yacko, Wacko, and Dot.
The lady ahead of me at the line for bagels was wearing earbuds and could barely hear the person working behind the counter. The lady behind me had the same set up but decided to make a phone call while she was waiting and when it was her turn it wasn’t clear to the person behind the counter when she was talking to him and when she was talking to the person on the otehr side of the phone call.
That’s just two people.
After I sat down I looked back at the line and there was a woman placing her order with full over-the-ear headphones on.
I didn’t stay for more.
Traveling always reminds me how awful people are - generally not in big ways but in small ways.
The people who saw the line of people boarding the plane and just walked up and cut in line knowing no one wanted to hear them say “we’re all going the same place.”
And of course they had more carry-ons than were permitted and overused the overhead bins.
There’s the person who boarded at the end and pointed to the seat next to me and said, “I’m there.”
The couple who couldn’t be bothered carrying their bags through the line for passport control so they kicked them over a couple of aisles and we had to walk around the bags til they caught up and pushed them ahead again.
“Oh Daniel,” you say, “none of these things are very important.”
You’re right. They’re tiny. But they add up.
We just need to be nicer to others and take note of how we act in shared spaces (talking on speaker - for example).
We need to remember that we all have days where we wake up wearing the bishop’s shoes.
Essay from Dim Sum Thinking Newsletter 181. Read the rest of the Newsletter or subscribe