The Complaint Department

One of my problems (and the list is a long one) is starting to write something and then losing steam or getting distracted (which doesn’t take all that much) and not finishing what I started, but thinking I will in the future. (Just like the 10 pounds I’ve planned to lose for the past three decades.)

So I save the unfinished piece in a Word document and just keep adding unfinished pieces until the Word document is way too big and it’s been way too long since I read what’s in there and can no longer remember what I saved. So then I just ignore it and start a new Word document which I believe – at least technically – qualifies me as a “hoarder.”

I’m saving ideas like some people save rubber bands or old newspapers because you never know when you’re going to want to reread an article about that new music craze “disco” or need a rubber band that lost its elasticity during the Carter Administration.

The second thing you don’t really need to know (which won’t stop me from telling you) is I recently read a comment by someone who is theoretically in the humor field and he said:

“Grievance generally is not fun. The funniest guy at a party is not the one just complaining about everything. That’s the annoying guy.”

OK, turns out I’ve got a complaint about that statement and I’ll try to make it annoying as possible:

Standup comedians do not talk about how wonderful their wife is or how efficiently airlines operate or how well-thought out government policies are; they complain about that stuff and I believe most humor is based on complaining, but being funny while doing it.

Constantly complaining without being funny is definitely annoying, but I may not know what I’m talking about because constantly complaining without being funny seems to be the philosophical basis of pretty much every show on Fox News and millions of people still watch them.

Anyway…

Thinking about complaints and my unused ideas made me realize I could do a regular feature called “The Complaint Department” and use all those unfinished pieces and ideas that never got turned into a cartoon or essay and we’ll start with:

“Excuseflation”

In a recent story from Bloomberg News, a Chicago bakery owner confessed that he used the news – Bird flu impacts cost of eggs! – as an excuse to raise prices without getting a bunch of complaints from his customers. (On the other hand, if the complaints were funny, those customers deserve their own standup special on Netflix.)

The story called it “Excuseflation” which is extremely lame, but we probably ought to be thankful they didn’t call it “Inflationgate” because adding the word “gate” to a scandal is what the creativity-challenged media has been doing ever since Richard Nixon said he was not a crook and maybe we should call this tendency “Mediagate” and if that catches on I expect a finder’s fee.

Anyway…

Whether the news event actually affected his business or not, the Chicago baker could increase his prices using the news event as an excuse and I’ve been thinking about that ever since one ship got stuck in a canal and suddenly everyone, everywhere raised their prices because they had “supply chain” issues.

According to Bloomberg a “growing body of analysts and researchers” (which is pretty vague and could mean one analyst convinced another analyst while waiting in line at Starbucks) are seeing this pattern across Corporate America: blaming the pandemic or the war in Ukraine or the Chiefs beating the Eagles in the Super Bowl and then using that news as an excuse to raise their prices.

Also noticed by the people who pay attention to this stuff:

More companies are embracing a “POV” philosophy and “POV” usually means “Point Of View” but in this case means “Price Over Volume” and the companies who do this might lose some customers, but think they’ll make it up by forcing their remaining customers to pay more.

Wait a minute.

I just realized I believed a lot of price increases were based on bullshit long before the ship-in-the-canal incident, I believed price increases were based on bullshit ever since I noticed that a decrease in the cost of oil had to “work its way through the system” before it reached the gas pumps, but let a camel trip over a rock in Saudi Arabia and the price of gas would go up the same day and that pricing strategy is so common it’s got its own name among analysts who wait in line at Starbucks:

“Rockets and Feathers.”

Prices go up like rockets, but come down like feathers and I’ve mentioned that before so maybe my tendency to repeat myself should be called “Cartoonistgate.”

Airports and guns

In 2022 the Transportation Security Administration intercepted 6,542 guns when people tried to get on an airplane carrying one and that’s an all-time record although recent events indicate we probably have the ability to set a new record in 2023 because when it comes to being Overly-Armed Dipshits, we take a back seat to no one and right about here you might want to start chanting: “U-S-A! U-S-A!”

Forgetting that you can’t carry a gun on an airplane seems pretty stupid, but then I remember that I’ve lost three Swiss Army Knives – that’s right, three – because I forgot I had them in my carryon luggage. On the other hand, my casual attitude toward knives is not totally my fault; I started flying when they used to ask you if you wanted chicken or steak for your in-flight meal and just in case you forgot to arm yourself before flying on an airplane, they’d give you a steak knife.

Every time I had a Swiss Army Knife confiscated they gave me the option of leaving the airport and mailing it to myself, which is a bullshit option they don’t think you’re really going to choose because who in their right mind, having made it through a modern airport obstacle course (more on that in a moment) and already checked their luggage, is going to leave, go find a stamp, an envelope and a post office?

And I’m guessing once you give up your really nice Swiss Army Knife, they don’t just throw it away, so I’m also guessing TSA agents are some of the best-armed people in the world because at the end of the day they’ve got all our knives and guns so if you can’t resist honking at someone in traffic, just make sure it’s not a TSA agent.

The new KCI airport; the “I” now stands for “Inconvenient”

Well that didn’t take a long.

Kansas City’s old airport was known for being really convenient because you could park in one of the lots in the middle of one of the three horseshoe-shaped terminals, take a short walk and go inside and wait for an arriving passenger and because you had that convenient-parking option there were fewer cars waiting at the curb for passengers.  Also, there were originally three terminals, which meant fewer people using each terminal.

Those days are over.

The new Kansas City Airport has one giant terminal and it opened on a Tuesday and by Thursday people had to wait an hour-and-a-half to pick up passengers.

Now you can’t wait at the curb, so they want you to wait in a “cell phone” lot for your arriving passenger to call and since people didn’t understand the new system, cars were backed up a half-mile or more and here’s what Kansas City’s aviation director, had to say about it:

“Our flying public is not used to just picking up at the curb when their flyer is on the curb. They’re used to coming in, parking, sitting for five or 10 minutes and then taking off when they come out.”

The people who built the airport are insisting it’s not a design flaw, which means it’s actually the Dumb-Ass Flying Public’s fault that things aren’t going smoothly because we were used to a convenient system, but now have to get used to an inconvenient system and we’re just not there yet.

From what I’ve seen, the media’s coverage of the new airport mostly focused on craft cocktails, gourmet food, art displays and shopping options which sounds really impressive if you don’t think about it too much. Unfortunately, my main goal when flying is spending as little time as possible in a fucking airport.

But just in case you feel differently and want to drink a “lower-sugar” smoothie and eat “artisan and aged” cheeses while shopping for expensive shoes and getting your hair cut (and you’ll have plenty of time to do all that stuff because the person picking you up is probably stuck in a big-ass traffic jam) here’s a list of all the neat stuff which is now available at the new KCI airport:

https://www.kansascity.com/news/business/biz-columns-blogs/cityscape/article272534501.html

OK, that’s it for the inaugural edition of “The Complaint Department” and only time will tell if I ever do one of these again because as I admitted in the opening paragraph, I’m easily distracted and there are five World Baseball Classic games on TV today.

But now that I think about it, the Canada-USA game doesn’t start until 9:00 PM which means staying up until about 1:30 AM if you want to watch it live, so the good news here is I clearly have more things to complain about and while some men are the “strong, silent” type, I appear to be the “weak, loud” type so I’m guessing you’ll hear more from me soon.