Rule No. 1 of the Trenary Geography Canon: Remote Sensing

1. The remote control that you want is always farther away than the ones that you don't.

Are you sitting on the couch? Perhaps watching television? Let's say that you are, because in the hypothetical world of Rule No. 1, you just sat down on The Couch. Someone left the TV on. Your housemate? Your significant other? Your cat? Any of the above. Perhaps all. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that the worst television show in the history of television shows has been left on. That's right; some jerk was watching The Nanny and has left it on, leaving Fran Drescher's cacaphonous snorts and nasal whining to explode your eardrums (and eventually your brain) like some sort of hell clarion. To top it all off, you're really lazy. Or you just had a run and your legs are jelly. Or you're Lieutenant Dan. Whatever. Either way, you can't get off the couch. But that's okay, because in the high tech world of Nanny re-runs, we have remotes. And look, they're right next to you. "The one for the DVD player. The one for the CD player. The one for your blender. The one that opens the sock drawer. The T... hey! Where's the TV remote?" you exclaim.

Well, it's one of three places. All of which are further away than the remotes that don't allow you to mute Fran Drescher. If you're lucky it's sitting on top of the TV. This will of course put you in a retro situation, as you will have to get up and approach the TV as people once did in the 1960's. (Like a bunch of barbarians.) If you're unlucky it's under a sofa cushion, hanging out with old McDonalds french fries and pennies that were minted when flagpole sitting was still fashionable. This placement will require you to still get up, but has the added bonus of making you disect your furniture and make unpleasant discoveries about the undersides of your cushions. The only positive side of this is that you may find stuff you forgot you were looking for, like that nice commemorative 15th anniversary pen you liberated from the bank, or a stray Oreo that once escaped its fate. (Thanks to modern food preservatives you can realign cosmic balance and eat that sunuvabitch.) The most terrible option is the one in which the remote is in another room. This is bad for a few reasons.

1. You have to get up off your tush.

2. You have to remember stuff .

3. Sometimes you also have to be a mind reader.

Let me explain this. In the easier, but still annoying scenario that YOU were the one responsible for losing the remote, you're going to have to backtrack and remember all the stuff you might have done with that remote before you lost it. What can you remember? "Well, there was a Magnum P.I. marathon on TV." Okay, good. We're getting somewhere. What happened next? "Obviously I made a sandwich. Or went to the bathroom. Or went to the garage to grab a beer from the fridge." So you backtrack. Bathroom. Garage. Kitchen. If you're really unlucky, you put the remote down while you were making the sandwich. Then you gotta remember what you put on the sandwich and ultimately end up searching in places like the vegetable crisper, or the cheese shelf. Perhaps it's in your onion nook.

The mind reader thing has to happen if you weren't the one responsible for the misplaced remote. Say your housemate lost it. It gets significantly harder then. You can't just recall what you did. Instead you end up asking yourself, "Would John take a shit during a Magnum P.I. marathon?" and "What kind of sandwich would John fashion to compliment 3 hours of staring at hawaian shirts and Tom Selleck's mustache?" (I, personally, would make a ham and medium chedar melt on rye with cold pineapple and thousand island dressing. Just sayin'.) All of a sudden you are forced to either develop latent psychic abilities, or punish your eardrums with one of the worst noises this side of autotune. (Yeah, that's right. Fran Drescher has been screaming this entire time.)

So do yourself a favor and fashion some sort of leash system on all your remotes. If it works for children, it can work for the clicker.

ADDENDUM:There is an exception to Rule No. 1. Occasionally the remote you're looking for is right in the remote basket/box/urn. But even when it is, it's always on the bottom. Always.

She Ain't Heavy, She's My Seat Neighbor.

Back in England.
Waiting for the train.
Back still hurts.
From sleeping on the plane.

My eyes may hurt but poetry still sings in my soul. This is surprising because I've come from a plane flight so crowded and uncomfortable that it surely should have decimated all odes, meters and stanzas from my heart. Thanks be to Thor, this is not so. My discomfort was not merely physical but also psychological. Allow me to explain.

As a kid who was a bit chunky growing up, I have much sympathy for people who struggle with their weight. Hell, I still struggle with it myself. I understand that people gain weight because of glandular problems, hormonal problems, or as the result of a food-based coping mechanism that arises from depression. Fat Bastard of Austin Powers fame was himself a victim of this vicious cycle. I've been there, and I get it. It's not easy being green and it's hell being fat.

That being said, my compassion goes only so far. As a stocky, broad shouldered guy, airplane seats aren't as comfortable for me as they probably are for someone like Tom Cruise. Compressing me into an economy class seat isn't fun, but it's doable. I can (after a few minutes of shifting and turning) find a position somewhat conducive to sleep. I cannot do this, however, when the person sitting next to me is overflowing into my seat. The person next to me on my recent flight was so big that she literally spilled over the arm rest into my seat area. Suffice it to say, sleeping was a chore. So was sitting for that matter.

Here I was confused how to feel. My id was screaming like Gordan Ramsay on primetime TV. On a basic level I wasn't getting what was paid for. I was registered to a whole seat. And yet I got a fraction of one. Should not a fraction of the price been paid for a fraction of the seat? 7/8th's of a seat for 7/8th's of the quoted price? Desireable from my point of view but impossible. Asking people their weight in order to sell them plane tickets is unconscionable. Asking women their weight would be suicide.

I am reminded of the uproar several years ago over airlines charging obese people for two seats. I can understand this to some degree. Perhaps there is an iota of prejudice involved in such a measure. And yet, it also comes down to a matter of functionality. It isn't safe for our bigger friends to squeeze themselves into smaller friend-sized seats. It's also uncomfortable for smaller friends like me.

My proposal? Love seats. At an increased cost, of course. One or two per plane would be sufficient. But Trenary, you ask, what if there are NO obese people on the plane in question? Well, I answer, then it is the perfect opportunity to cuddle up with that special someone for a nice cozy flight. Don't have a romantic interest available? Find one by being paired up with a stranger in the love seat. Think of it like a dating service via private transit. What makes it even more plausible in this capacity is that dinner and a movie are already provided. If all goes well, I hear there's even a club you can join before the plane lands.

Ultimately I'm really trying not to be an asshole about this. I'm sure the big lady next to me was a perfectly nice person who didn't want to give me back and shoulder problems throughout the flight, but she did. I think my solution is an easy way to allow bigger people a place to sit a lesser cost than buying two seats and without the incumberance on other passengers. The proof is in the puddin'. The loveseat option has already been adopted by movie theaters:


and is extremely popular at my local cinema, The Savoy. Of course, it'll never happen. The airline would feed us some cock and bull story about safety, or losing profit or somesuch. C'est la vie. Corporate pig pokers...

Keep this in mind though, folks. Air quality on airplanes was far better when average joes, jills and jesses could smoke on them. The air was circulated and filtered. Without cigarettes, the air remains stagnant. Now planes are big aluminum, petri dishes for whatever green-gooped cocktail your seat neighbor has stirring in their lungs. Because clean air isn't necessary if we ain't smoking...

But life ain't all bad. Internet's free and hopefully the pasty shop will open up soon. Mmmm, pasties...

Love,

Jonathan "All You Need Is Love Seat" Trenary