Man Eats Plane, Is Stupid
Somewhere in Nebraska there is a man eating a Boeing 747. Eating a Boeing 747! That's an entire freaking airplane! And it's not some new Lemon-Flavored Micro-747 either; this poor, poor man is taking EVERY PART of a steel construct that weighs at least as much as the entire population of Sierra Leone and putting it all into his body. That's the engines, the windows, the seats, probably even (gasp) the airline food left on board.
Why is he doing this? At first I thought Nebraska had passed a law making it
illegal to feed the stupid, but then I found out that this guy was doing it
for love. That's right, he's doing this because he wants a girl to notice
him. The only possible explanation for this is that she turned him down for
a date saying "not unless you ingest thirteen hundred metric tons of United
Airlines byproduct," though for some reason I can't picture her saying
even that. Plus, does he really think this is going to work? Now, I confess
I don't completely know everything the female species wants out of us guys,
but I have never heard of chicks getting turned on by guys whose intestines
are lined with scrap metal. "Oh Herbert, all that metal crunching is really
turning me on… what say we go share a quick lawnmower, then gargle some
motor oil?"
The fact is, guys are notoriously stupid when it comes to love. No, not even
that. We're notoriously stupid when it comes to what we think could be
love at some point in the future. I'm not talking about random hookups here
either; I'm talking about finding someone you think could be that one special
person, put there on earth just for you (along with lots of other things my
mom used to tell me when I was 18). You think you could be in love, but she
doesn't seem to notice and/or tries to kill you, so what do you do? Wait for
a goddamn plane to crash in your yard and throw it on the stove? Well, hopefully
not. But guys have such huge egos, we have to do something to make the
love of our life notice us. And if this 'something' includes pretending to like
country music, so be it.
Hollywood doesn't help. At the climax of your stock teen love film, the five-foot
tall snot-nose boy has to attract the attention of the head cheerleader (she's
the one in last month's Maxim) by doing something she can't possibly
ignore. So, he stands on a table in the middle of the cafeteria and starts shrieking
out the words to "Love Me Do" as loudly and tone-deaf as he possibly
can. Then, somehow, the 7-foot blonde (she's the one in next month's FHM)
realizes that, wow, the little loser really does love her. So she goes over
to the walking pimple factory and starts making out with him, while her brainless
bully of an ex-boyfriend is so pissed he can barely enunciate the phrase "Me
want kill you dead!! Raaarghh!" In other words, John Hughes and Dustin
Diamond are trying to tell you that you're only gonna score that chick if you
do something really, really stupid.
But hey, it's natural. I've been there. I even tried that "Love Me Do"
thing, except I only knew about half the words, the girl didn't really notice
and I ended up getting bitch-slapped by my entire fifth period class. But the
hilarity doesn't end there; did you know that throwing rocks at your loved one's
window at 3 a.m. is a great way to meet members of your local police force?
I've written awful poetry, painted my car purple, pretended to like Dawson's
Creek. Good lord, I even bought one ex-girlfriend a Blink-182 CD. All this
I have done and yet here I am today, a single man (not-so-subtle hint to you
ladies). I guess if there's any wisdom to be found in this train wreck of an
explanation, it's that even if you think you're in love with someone, there's
lots of easy ways to let them know - don't do something you're going to regret
five years down the road, like hump a cactus or gnaw your own arm off.
Maybe it's just me, but it seems awfully early for us to be professing infinite
love anyway. Finding true love at this point in time is pretty damn unlikely
- to find your lifelong partner at this point takes about as much luck as getting
struck by a lightning bolt made entirely of winning lottery tickets. But, you
know, I guess that means there's a chance. I just don't want to have to see
another one of my friends get another 3-foot tattoo of Mooby the Cow just to
get the attention of some girl who's more interested in Ricky Martin's second
cousin (who gets amazing amounts of play, by the way). Hey, guys are suckers,
though most aren't big enough suckers to eat half of TWA's property for Thursday's
dinner. I swear, that plane had better be secretly made out of pizza or I've
lost my faith in the human race.