X10 Feels for the Naked Traveller
I’m beginning to look back fondly at the good old days when I got on an airplane and simply feared, “we’re all going to die.”
Now, when you get on a plane, you can’t help but think of the latest headlines designed to super-size your fear: “We’re all going to get blown to bits by a bottle of Channel Number Five.”
Travel is getting tough, as the battle between law enforcement and those that have run out of their last Prozac continues to deepen. It won’t be long before we will all be forced to travel naked. Instead of the “smoking or no-smoking” sections of the past,” there will be the men’s, women’s and Mile-high Club sections. This may make some long-distance routes quite popular for the young and the restless. For others, like me, it will bring us back to the Greyhound bus.
X10 researchers have been gathering at a secret underground research facility near their Kent, Washington headquarters in recent days, as they brainstormed ways that the company could score some extra income from this worldwide air rage, and perhaps get a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize.
X10 has a history of creating devices that sense terror, spy on bad omens and let you watch it all in the comfort of your easy chair. X10 has dozens of spy cameras, pendants that signal for help and control your entire house with a remote control. There must be some way that the company could come up with something that would identify terrorists, bring them to their knees and disengage their brain cells one stem at a time.
Of course it also wouldn’t hurt if X10 could make a profit. Perhaps whatever product resulted could be sold to a more exclusive customer base – maybe Halliburton? “It could be like selling printers – we can sell the product for $19.99 and charge $10 million for the batteries,” one X10 marketing manager said.
As the brainstorming session crawled slowly into the wacky weekend celebration at headquarters, the local winery grape harvest had come into full distillation. As the evenings fermented, thoughts were being itemized on the flip chart, one crackpot idea at a time.
“How about we make a brain wave sensor that can tell airline officials when they’re boarding a passenger who is severely depressed?” was the first suggestion.
“Sure, you’re asking someone to come into this tiny tube, sit in a sardine can and listen to crying babies for six hours and not be miserable?” Another manager responded.
“How about we just pipe in everyone’s thoughts as they board an airplane?” Another researcher asked.
“How many times do you want to hear “this food sucks?” a manager responded.
“Well then, how about if we create a spy camera that has a high enough resolution to read the laundry instructions on a passenger’s underwear? Imagine you’re one of these whack jobs that doesn’t care about killing himself and everyone else on a plane – but if he knows that the condition of his underwear is going to be shown on the Internet – where his mother can see it – he might think again!”
“I think you’ve got something there,” a marketing manager responded with a bright smile.