Dookies™ in the Pool

This is great.  Once again, the airlines find that they are losing money.  Apparently, this time rising fuel prices are to blame.

I really wonder why nobody in the executive ranks at all of these companies had the forsight to hedge rising fuel costs.  Cereal companies hedge the cost of their raw materials namely the grains, corn etc., that goes into the products that they make.  Haven’t the folks at the airlines caught on yet?

What truly makes this scary is that it would appear that almost all of them are losing money.

American Airlines is by one estimate, losing almost $3.5 million a day.  Ticket prices have risen 6% while jet fuel prices have risen more than 92% over the past year.  Clearly something has to give.

What would happen if market-rate fuel surcharges were added?  Would people fly less?  Perhaps, perhaps not.

If people flew less as a result of the higher fuel surcharge, planes would probably fly closer to their capacity and fewer flights would be needed. 

If people flew the same amount as they did before the spike, airline fuel bills would be covered and there would be a little left over for profit–a pretty simple concept.

With recent price spikes for flour, my local bakery, bagel shop and pizza place have all raised prices and apologized for having to have had to do it.  These businesses aren’t charities, they simple need to earn a profit for all of their value-added labor.  I don’t like the higher prices but as a consumer, I know that if local retailers aren’t making money, they tend to close up shop fairly quickly and it’ll cost more in terms of time, money and quality to go to another store.

What I don’t understand is why major airlines, with legions of seemly intellegent people working for them, can’t make this concept work as well.

Something tells me that Chapter 11 is in the future for some, mergers for others. 

At some point someone needs to yell “Dookie in the Pool!  What we’re doing isn’t sustainable so we’ve got to try a rather novel concept for an airline, we’re going to try to make sure that our revenues exceed our expenses” 

Unfortunately history is a pretty good indicator so I’d suggest that more of the same is on the horizon.  I hope they’ll let me transfer my airline mikes.

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Driving home from the Robert Plant/Allison Krause concert last night with my wife, I spotted a car with ‘IMSMART’ on the vanity license plate. 

This plate got me thinking.  In fact I thought about the possible implications of having such a plate all the way home as my wife dozed off next to me.

Now, I don’t know if the person behind the wheel of this particular car is smart.  They may be.  They may not be, who’s to know? 

If they really are smart, why do they feel the need to tell everyone? 

If they aren’t smart, are they trying to cover up this fact?  If so, wouldn’t their friends and neighbors realize this and point it out or perhaps gossip amongst themselves?

“Hey Fred?  Remember the time you set the dog on fire trying to light the Barbeque? That wasn’t too smart now was it?” 

“See Mildred, I told you Fred thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.  Now he’s gone out and got himself a license plate that tells the whole world! IMSMART indeed!  That has got to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen.”

Many of us see hundreds of cars everyday and most likely don’t pay much attention to the license plate. What really got me thinking about this one is the simple fact that I live in New York where drivers are famous or perhaps infamous for ‘communicating’ their feelings for and about other drivers both verbally and through the extensive use of gestures including, but not limited to extending a single digit in the general direction  of motorists who are perceived to possess less than satisfactory driving skills.

With this in mind I thought to myself,  ”Wow!  Talk about setting yourself up for potential ridicule.”  

Can you imagine having an ’IMSMART’ vanity tag and then cutting someone off?  At the next light the offended New Yorker pulls up and has a field day based on your tag alone!  How does one respond?  How can one respond?  I mean, you’ve announced for the whole world to see ‘IMSMART’ and they you did something dumb.

As I made my way home, I thought that perhaps ‘IMDUMB’ might be a much safer choice.  At least if you did something wrong and were accosted by another motorist you could point out that they had ample warning based on your tag.

As I convinced myself that ‘IMDUMB’ might be a better option, I realized that usage of the word ‘DUMB’ would not be politically correct.  Of course I also realized that if you really think that you’re dumb, you might not be too concerned about being politically correct anyway.

Some other adjectives came to mind such as ‘STUPID’.  I’m fairly certain that ‘IMSTUPID’ would do the trick, in fact, it might actually prevent many problems. 

Think about it.  An irate driver would have to pause and wonder “Who would be stupid enough to put “IMSTUPID” on their license plate?  Further more, if they are really that stupid, do I really want to get into an altercation with this person?”  We all do stupid things but maybe, just maybe acting stupid sometimes can actually payoff. 

A better option may have been ‘GETSMART’.  ‘GETSMART’ could imply that the driver of the vehicle is a fan of the popular show Get Smart.  It also implies that one should think about getting smarter and could actually be a good tag for a college admissions person.  What it doesn’t imply is the cursed “I’m smarter than you”.

All things considered, a Dookie in the Pool of “IMSMART.” 

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