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Personalized Solutions in an Impersonal World

Little known fact is that there was actually a fifth plane on 9/11 that was marked for hijacking and destined for the mezzanine of the Nassau Coliseum. I was on the flight, and got wind of the plot upon parsing the ominous whispers being scattered about the cabin in conversational Arabic shortly after takeoff. I informed the flight attendant, and she promptly heeded my recommendation of throwing The Usual Suspects up on all the screens free of charge. Mustafa, the terrorist ringleader, had already seen the flick and knew the big reveal, but still delayed the hijacking because he wanted to see his cohorts’ reactions when Keyser walked away unscathed. By then we were diverted to and landed in Ottawa without incident, and most importantly for American Airlines without a hull loss.  So AA sort of owes me one, and I placed a phone call to them on your behalf to request an upgrade, but apparently even Medal of Freedom recipients are subject to blackout dates. Sorry Irwin, but it looks like you’re stuck in the skid rows.

There are, and have never been, any hells on Earth that compare to flying coach. There’s little difference between the trains that departed Warsaw and the planes departing Houston, but at least passengers arriving at their destinations via the former were greeted by live music.

Throughout the remainder of this week, I’ll prep you for your imminent descent into the Seventh Circle. You’ll need to do things unbecoming of a Chadwick, but following my instructions is the only way to adjust your posh sensibilities sufficiently downward in time for your flight. I don’t know if slumming it in other facets of life for just a few days will prep you for sharing the armrest with another person that’s a woman who doesn’t shave the arm, but let’s give it a shot.

Wednesday

Most people nowadays only employ chauffeurs to transport the corpses of matriarchs whose loved ones can’t be bothered to personally provide one last mid-day lift to a park. So give yours the week off and get behind the wheel yourself. Don’t worry about not knowing how to drive; nobody else does either. You’ll quickly notice that the race most adept at geometry is the most inept at judging angles.

During the morning rush, many Chadwick Conglomerate employees may be sharing the road with you. As a refresher, these are the people that take money from customers and then give it to you. Unfortunately, they usually take a small cut before it gets dispersed to your Genevan bank accounts and anonymized Bahamian shells. That’s how they buy the cars that are in your way.

Don’t be too concerned, though. They’re not as affluent as their motorized transport makes them appear, and most of their income is siphoned off by multiple layers of government jurisdictions and promptly made available for you to claim back via creative tax accounting.

Cars are run by petrol. It moves the entire contraption, and it’s cheaper than milk, but complaints about its price surely pepper many conversations amongst your workers. Think about that and then reflect on how much better you are than them.

Thursday

The most common poor person lunch is a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which is as contrived as it sounds. People who can’t afford more than a single grape or peanut will often crush both and spread the resulting paste as thinly as possible between two slightly thicker slices of bread. Upon mixing with saliva, it all blends together to give the illusion of sufficient sustenance. It’s not sufficient though; you will die at a later date than others by avoiding this habit once this week is through.

Friday

No more private, platinum-plated executive washrooms. Let’s get you using the employee restrooms (assuming you provide at least one and don’t make them hoof it to Sbarro for every tinkle). You may have noticed these around the Chadwick Tower, the rooms with the doors marked “Men” and “Women.” The only difference once inside is that the men’s room may have some urinals in place of all-out toilets for those who only need to pee and are extremely sure of it. As you may not be accustomed to making such judgment calls, and surely appreciate the nirvanas of sitting, I recommend using the toilet your first few attempts so as to not dangerously exclude your ever-moving bowels.

Someone of your socioeconomic stature can’t just go around pooping all willy-nilly. It requires careful planning. It doesn’t matter if your name is prefixed with Sir, suffixed with Ph.D., or surnamed with Chadwick, the moment someone hears you pooping the entire illusion that you’re less fleeting than your feces is dashed. Only mortals poop, and if we’re all pooping here then I’m only gonna have as much respect for you as I do myself and that ain’t much. Your employees will feel the same way and your conglomerate will crumble under a tsunami of insubordination. To help you avoid such a fate, I’ve mapped out the logistics of what you’ll encounter below.

Imagine a hypothetical restroom configuration of one urinal and two toilets, one of the latter which you’ll occupy. The toilets are enclosed in stalls, so you can pretend you’re a shitting Smarty Jones. We’ll assume that whoever is at the urinal will see whoever enters and exits either stall. The possible permutations of fellow restroom occupants, in ascending order of desirability, are as such:

Urinal: Occupied; Other stall: Unoccupied

Hold it. Pretend you were there to blow your nose on the brown paper towels and get out.

Urinal: Occupied; Other stall: Occupied

You may be wondering why an occupied sibling stall is preferable to an unoccupied one. While this scenario sports the least privacy of all, remember that the objective here isn’t comfort, but rather upholding your pristine aura in the eyes of your fellow restroom dwellers. This achieves that. You can mosey on in and rip loose ASAP, while maintaining plausible deniability of your enthusiastic excretions. The guy at the urinal doesn’t know from which stall the smells and sounds emanate, and will surely convince himself that it wasn’t the one with the Chadwick. The guy in the other stall of course knows the source stall, but he doesn’t know your ID since he didn’t see you walk in. And as you spray, he will come to the sad realization that he’s been set up as the fall guy.

Urinal: Unoccupied; Other stall: Occupied

A little more privacy here, and full anonymity, so you may be tempted to rain hell without worry. However, I’d advise a measured, respectful poop, if only to ensure your continued cover. As there’s no one at the urinal to arbitrarily assign blame to either stall’s occupant, the man in the other stall has no incentive to sheepishly and swiftly exit when he’s finished his business. Instead, he may post up outside your stall all day if he deems your transgression of etiquette worthy of a confrontation. So if it’s going to be an intrusively loud dump, make sure you’re prepped to hang around in the stall until your fellow defecator retreats from his watch. Bring a Nook, with enough battery to get through all 150 Shades if need be.

Urinal: Unoccupied; Other stall: Unoccupied

Turn that toilet into Dresden.

Again, intentionally degrading your lifestyle so severely and immediately still may not be enough to prime you for the coach catastrophe that awaits. Regardless, when your Saturday flight comes around, board when called, and quietly go to the back of the plane; the last thing this country needs is another Rosa Parks.