Complex Numbers

Airlock.

This year's going to suck no matter what, so why not start it off with rants, courtesy of "JAFBG"  [XGC]?

As usual, I'm just tackling the prompts at random.

Unruly passenger incidents on airplanes have skyrocketed in the past couple years. What do you think about all these in-flight incidents and what should be done about it?

What the hell do you think should be done about it? We live in a world where people are slapped onto a no-fly list for jaywalking, and yet they're not banning all passengers who commit assault in a crowded flying tin can with no survivable escape routes? That is, at a minimum banning them, or for the most egregious cases, they should install airlocks in the tail cone, and anyone who smacks a flight attendant or random fellow passenger gets instantly ejected... whether the plane's still on the ground or not.

If you want to be fair about that last bit, engage the other passengers in a game of Judge, Jury and Executioner, and let them vote on it: Lifetime flight ban, fine, jail time, or airlock; you choose.

Okay, summary execution may not actually fly (pun intended, as always), but a guy can dream, right? How about this, then: Airlines slap a surcharge on everything, already. Extra legroom, checked luggage, bag of ten tiny stale pretzels, oxygen, a toilet visit, whatever. How about for a small fee -- say, $50,000 -- you're entitled to one (1) punch, slap, or kick of a flight attendant. They can still do whatever they want to you afterward, including duct-taping you to the least comfortable seat in Cattle Class, but that one smack'll cost you 50 thousand smackers. Just institute mandatory MMA training for the flight attendants so they learn to take a punch (paid for by the surcharge, of course), and we're golden.

Or, you know, if they're really serious about not wanting passengers to get all unruly and shit, how about not packing us in like sardines? Sure, that'll increase the cost of a plane ticket, thus causing fewer people to fly, but are you concerned about the environment, or not?

Since that's not going to happen, free and mandatory Valium for adult passengers might work, too. Well, not free, obviously, but tack it on as another surcharge because they love doing that. It would be especially fun for us drunks. I was given Valium for (I think) the first time in my life last month, to keep me from screaming in terror as they fucked with my eyeballs, and it worked. Didn't drink afterwards, though.

Vaporized THC in the cabin air is an option as well. No better time to get high than when you're getting high, and stoners don't get violent unless they're also mean drunks or someone laced their weed with PCP or some shit like that.

Speaking of which, I'll also tell you one thing that should not be done about it, but apparently has been, and that's banning drinking or bar services on flights. Shit, alcohol is the only thing that makes cramming into steerage remotely tolerable, and most of us drunks aren't mean drunks; as with everything, the few who are ruin it for everyone else. Or, rather, the pissant airline companies use that excuse to ruin it for everyone else. It's not the poor alcohol's fault; the blame lies squarely on the shoulders of the offending person themself.

In any case, this hardly affects me because I don't fly much these days, for obvious reasons. Sure, there was the Delta flight I took in July when I was stranded in South fracking Dakota, but that was a legitimate emergency. No one got punched, all the flights were on time or early, and no one bitched about having to wear a mask on the completely full planes.