Airport Signs: Unintentionally Hilarious
Earlier today, I took Stephan to the airport for a business
trip to LA (holla, LA friends!), and while I was there, I took a fairly
hilarious photo series of a “safety presentation video” that JFK now has
playing while you’re waiting to go through security. The
security line was actually so long, I waited with him until he got to the place
where they check your ticket, though I did get semi-kicked out of the line by a
roving ticket-checker who was like “You—you are not flying? You get out of line.” We
were surprised/ impressed that she was able to spot me as a hanger-outer and
not as an actual traveler, so I ended up just standing/ inching along on the
outside of the security rope lines, where eventually I got into trouble again
for taking pictures inside the airport.
I’m not sure if that’s an actual thing, but everyone at JFK
seemed crabby today, so in order to be compliant and not break any laws, I
agreed to erase the photos from my phone, and am going to just draw sketches
and take pictures of those, because I control my thoughts, JFK, not you!
So…the slideshow starts out all
normal and friendly, like “Here are the things you CAN bring on the
airplane!”
Here’s my artistic recreation of the “Liquids” slide. Isn’t it nice? Cool graphic design liquid containers,
indicating the sizes of liquids you will be able to bring on the plane. Okey dokey!
If you want to bring a small amount of “Liquids” onto the plane, you’re
all good!
Next up: gels. I guess that would be like, hair gel, lotion,
baby butt paste, stuff like that?
Whatever. Here are the little
containers indicating what size of gel you can bring on. All righty then!
Similar friendly-looking slides for aerosols ad so on. OK, that’s an informative presentation, and
well-designed to boot. I get what I can
bring on the airplane. Now, what about
the things I can’t bring on, like opened food and big bottles of perfume? Will those be on the next slide?
Nope. The next slide is where I think this presentation
takes a hard right turn, because instead of showing us what we wouldn’t be able
to bring on the airplane (like, say, a 32 oz bottle of water or a big ol’ thing
of hairspray), the next slide starts us on a track that, rather than being the
opposite, ups the ante to a strange and crazy criminal level. You go from being able to take small bottles
of gels and liquids to NOT BEING ABLE TO BRING A HAMMER, and I’m sorry, those
are not opposites.
You know what else you can’t bring? A GUN, or FIREWORKS, or MACE, or a BASEBALL
BAT. Again, these things are not the opposite of
small bottles of shampoo and hair gel, and I’m pretty sure they are not going
to make you just throw that stuff away if you walk up to the security scanner. Oh, no no—if
you try to bring a hammer, a pocket full of fireworks, or a loaded gun
through that security line, you are
probably going to be on the news.
All I'm saying is, this slide presentation goes from zero to “you are banned
from the airport” in one click, and I kind of felt like it was lacking in
“middle material,” like what MIGHT not be acceptable.
Here’s an example of how I think it should go:
4 oz of hair gel—that’s ok!
Come on board!
8 oz of hair gel?
Sorry. Not acceptable. We are going to make you throw that away, and
we are not that sorry for the inconvenience, because you should have known
better. Stop crying, get your stuff, and
get on the plane. You are holding up
the line.
Pocketful of fireworks?
Where did you even get those?
Sir, please come with us. You are not going on the plane, and in fact,
you might be going to jail/ might not be flying again for quite some time. Come with us, crazy.