Zachary Gelman
I used to take flights from the Pittsburgh “International” Airport to my hometown of Manhattan pretty frequently. Getting to PIT is a minor annoyance — especially when the windows of the 28X fog up and it gets all hot and steamy in there (I’d suggest they add some luggage holding infrastructure to the 28X buses, but I’m pretty sure they don’t have dedicated 28X buses). Might be too much to ask of a “Class 2” city like Pittsburgh (apparently verging on “Class 3” if us Carnegie Mellon Students keep leaving post-college) — but I’ve got nothing but love in my heart for the TSA agents working there. Shoutout Monique, Paula, Jeff, and all the other great agents staffing PIT. They’re diligent but not hard-asses. If we had workers of their caliber in all governmental safety roles, maybe1 agents2 of3 the4 government5 would6 stop7 killing8 people9 all10 the11 time12 for13 no14 reason15. In fact, the Pittsburgh International Airport is pretty good. In addition to the aforementioned chill TSA agents, they also have some of the fastest lines in the city, a walkable terminal where you can get from any letter to any other letter without taking a train, and even some places to dine! But the best part of an airport is the fleet of etymologically related airplanes. Fun fact: An airplane is the only vehicle with six wheels that flies that’s not a garbage truck. I’ve found myself (in this very newspaper you are reading) evangelizing about airplanes. Another fun fact: Almost all planes that crash are piloted by lawyers or dentists or doctors instead of actual airline pilots! Anyways, this article is about why YOU should pretend to be deaf on an airplane. If this helped you in any way, my Venmo is @zgelman.
Pros:
1) You know when you’re chilling in the aisle seat (a personal choice not due to any bladder or prostate related issues), overhead light blasting onto the pages of the book you’ve been trying to finish for two years, and some troglodyte that can’t handle a hint of brightness in their world asks you to turn off the light? You can’t rebuke them because they have the power to go to the bathroom 14 times (which forces you to stand up 28 times), so you’re forced to play nice and take your revenge by kicking the luggage they’ve placed under the seat in front of them a bunch of times. But then your foot gets hurt, and you aren’t springy enough to stand up immediately when the plane lands, and then everyone leaves before you, and you miss your bus home, and your girlfriend breaks up with you for “various reasons.” Now imagine this scenario if you were simply pretending to be deaf. “Can you turn that light off?” “…” They can’t antagonize you because a deaf guy doesn’t have to stand up when his (or her) neighbor needs to vape ghost clouds in the bathroom. Problem solved.
2) Have you ever been sitting in your window seat, head propped in-between the headrest and the closed window for a well-deserved rest, when some reverse-troglodyte that can’t handle five seconds without seeing the sun verbally pushes you to push up the window? He can’t physically push you because his lack of bladder control forced him into the aisle seat, and a portly man is sitting between the two of you, so his brutish words are his only way of attempting to seize control within the airplane ecosphere. Imagine a world in which you aren’t deaf. You hear this man’s plea, and the empathetic bones in your body push the window up. Your sleep is then marred by the sun’s ability to perpetually situate itself directly at your sightline. Now, imagine a world in which you are deaf. You fall asleep, blissfully unaware of the demands placed upon you, and fast-travel to your destination.
3) Chicks dig a guy who speaks multiple languages, and ASL is the only language that isn’t racist to imitate (it probably is some other type of -ist, though, so I’d recommend you tread carefully on this one). As a deaf guy, you can totally still speak English, it’s just the hearing English part that’s a little tricky. Turn your one-hour flight into the perfect meet-cute! To make the relationship long term, you can either stage a miraculous recovery or just get used to living another lie. And of course, if she also speaks ASL, they might throw you out of the plane.
Cons:
There are no cons to pretending to be deaf on an airplane.
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