I've not made a lot of universal rules. Those I've made have been neither widely disseminated, nor routinely abided. Among those rules nobody seems to follow:

- Orders at Starbucks must be limited to fourteen syllables or less. You came for coffee. You ordered an in-ground pool. Stop it.

- People must show .006 seconds of concern for your well-being after you've told them you just had a bout with food poisoning before they're allowed to ask, "where did you eat?"

- Shut up, cats.

- Martin Lawrence, before being allowed to make a new movie, must sit and watch any of his other movies. If he can still see, he's allowed to make one more.



But now I’d like to make a new rule, and if this one doesn’t stick, damnit if I’m not going to…I dunno…sit and bitch about it some more. Here is my new rule:

- No leaning back in airplane seats if you’re in Coach.

I fly Coach. For those of you who fly Business Class or First Class, let me give you a sense of what us Coach flyers are experiencing back behind that Iron Curtain.

Let’s have an activity…



What I want you to do is to go to your nearest elementary school and steal two chairs. (Don’t worry, you’ll get to put them back when you’re done, and if anyone stops you, just tell them it’s for science). Take these tiny chairs home and put them in the crawlspace of your home, facing a wall, and about seven inches from it.

Then I want you to invite your wife, husband, or domestic partner to sit in that chair, and to rest his/her arm on the armrest of your elementary-school-chair.

Next, I want you to grab a briefcase, a laptop bag, and an old Brookstone plastic bag (The Sharper Image or Chic-Fil-A may be substituted), and fill them with rocks. Once this is accomplished, please re-enter your crawlspace while carrying all three, and work your way back to the elementary school chair without touching any other items or boxes with any of the bags. (If you touch one, please yell “Hey, watch out” at yourself and then glare angrily at yourself, and then start over). Once next to your Significant-Other, you must push your way past your SO to the empty chair without touching your SO with any of the bags, or your butt, or your crotch; then sit in the elementary-school chair and find a way to stow all three bags of rocks under the elementary school chair (or, if you’re an overhead-bin kind of person, in a shoebox nearby).

Sit in that chair, facing the wall, with seven inches of clearance between your chair and the wall, for four hours. If you feel you need to pee, please cram yourself in a ventilation duct to do so, then return to your seat immediately.

You are permitted one snack of eleven peanuts and four ounces of generic spring water at the two-hour mark, but you must refer to them as “refreshments and beverage service,” and can only store them on your lap on top of a tray the size of a graduation cap.



…Now…


Let’s do this…let’s now presume the guy in front of you put his seat back.

…approximately ten minutes into your four-hour journey, I want you to scoot your chair closer to the wall by four of your seven inches.

You now have three inches left.

Your shoulders are pushed back into the elementary school chair, your legs are arched with your shins digging into the wall, and your hands are stuck helplessly at your side as you try to imagine how much better it will feel when the lack of blood in your feet moves from “pins and needles” to “totally numb.”

For additional hilarity, please have your SO, at that very moment, turn to you and say, “ladies and gentlemen, you are now permitted to take out your laptop computers.”



Here’s the thing…

If you’re in an airplane seat, and you lean back, you get MAYBE four degrees of lean. MAYBE. Let’s face it…you’re not any happier…if anything, you’ve just shattered hope that this ride could get more comfortable by eliminating the one option you had to make it so.

Moreover, the guy behind you loses four inches. This may not seem like much, but remember, he only had seven. You’ve just taken away 60% of his space.

I know you’re allowed to lean back in airplane seats. I know that. I’m not saying you’re not. You’re also allowed to fart in small cars, and allowed to use the bathroom on busses for #2. But if you’re any kind of a reasonable, sensible person, you don’t. Because that’s what makes us human.

Can we all agree to this new rule?

So it is written, so shall it be done.

Peace,
Justin

Fri 743 p.m. (US)

As I write this, I'm eight hours into a 14-hour flight from Chicago to Seoul, South Korea (the good Korea)...and the little map in front of me tells me we're somewhere over Alaska.

I’m flying on a Korean Air 747-400…the double-decker kind of jet…and I’m up on the upper-deck. We took a Comair puddle-jumper from Cincy to Chicago…Delta (sigh)…and I couldn’t help but laugh when they announced that, due to our imminent approach to Chicago, “service would be discontinued in the cabin.” By “service,” I’m assuming they mean the surly woman who grumbled by me with a six-ounce (not kidding) Dasani water bottle and said “want water?” with the same enthusiasm a polite man in a downpour asks, “want my umbrella?” They also offered a tacky piece of dried biscotti in a Delta cello-wrap. Frankly, I was pleased to see it discontinued.

This is compared with Korean Air, where, after being escorted to the upper-deck and shown our all-in-one-music-TV-movie-videogame-shopping-massage-phonecall-vibrating-recliner-seat (with about four feet of legroom), we were given slippers, a glass of wine, a glass of fresh watermelon juice, and a plate of warm cookies. This was followed by two four-course meals during the course of our flight, any number of liquor, wine, beer and coffee services, a bunch of random foods, 65 napkin-replacements, and about 46,000 bows. (Read as in “bow at the waist” not as in “nice bow in your hair). God help me, they even gave us face-spray.

If you read my last blog entry, you'll know that I'm afraid of Asia. Not Asians, mind you...who doesn't like Asians?....but Asia itself. I don't know if you've watched much National Geographic Channel, Travel Channel or anything else at all, but if you have, you may have noticed that Asia is very different than the US.

In China, they speak languages which sound nothing like ours. They write with strokes that look more to me like beautiful little sketches of houses than letters. They don't wear shoes inside. And they eat ducks.

Yes, quite different.

And that kinda freaks me out. I know virtually nothing of China. I can say "hello" in Mandarin, and have learned a number of very dirty curse words from Firefly, but that's about the extent of it. I'm going to be helping out on a project in the middle of a culture I can't possibly understand. I'm nervous.

I miss Stacy already. She always makes me feel comfortable. She's great at that.

I'm REALLY looking forward to this week, but it's a really healthy blend of fear and joyful anticipation.

I'll post pictures. I'll describe things. I'll probably fall asleep fairly early by their clocks, but I'll do my best to post what I can.

China man....freaking China.

Cool. (Slow, slightly shuddery breath). Cool.

Peace,
Justin







Sat 3:48 a.m. (US) 5:48 p.m. (Korea)

I am writing to you from the Sky Lounge from the airport in Seoul, South Korea. Since I’ve been in Korea (which has been about an hour now), and given only the evidence that one can gather from one’s plane at gate 17 to one’s Sky Lounge near gate 26, I have learned several things about South Korea:

1. Koreans are very clean.
2. Koreans are very polite..
3. Koreans are very, very sweet and helpful, even to stupid Americans.
4. Koreans spend a lot of time in airports.

If China is half as clean and kind as Korea, I’m set. (In fact, the rumor is that China is exactly half as clean and kind as Korea). In the 22 hours that I’ve been on this trip so far, I’ve yet to see my fears realized. No attempts to thieve my passport, no communist prisons, no bird flu or SARS, and very little kung-fu battling. Greg and I have gotten along just fine, as everyone seems to speak at least a little English, and we smile and bow our heads a lot.

I’m starting to get tired…as you can see, it’s 4:00 in the morning by my standards, and sleeping on the plane, while pleasant by comparison to most airplane experiences, was still far from restful. I’ve just downed 12 oz of some Korean drink called “Pocari Sweat” which, according to the English side of its label, “is quickly absorbed into the body tissues due to its fine osmoalaity and contains electrolytes.” I also picked up a carton of “Seoul Milk,” which, despite the great opportunity for a heart-inspiring play on words, is actually just milk from Seoul.

I’ve half a day tomorrow to attempt to catch up on sleep…but I think I’d rather spend it out and about. We’re not really going to have any touristy time during our stay in China, so I’ve got to get whatever shopping/tourism in tomorrow morning. For me, this means going to Shanghai’s shopping district, and trying to find something pretty to buy for Stacy. I hope I find something cool…I am very, very far away, so I want to bring back something that feels exotic. I’ll keep you posted.

We’re off to our quick flight to Pudong airport in Shanghai.