For those of you who haven’t heard about the tragedy, America’s favorite airplane publication and source of all things unnecessary, SkyMall, is filing for bankruptcy.
Some of you might mock my love for SkyMall, but I can guarantee you anyone who has flown has picked up the publication and seen at least one thing they want.
Come on. Admitting is the first step.
Because SkyMall isn’t about needs, it’s all about wants.
SkyMall caters to that person inside all of us who thinks, “It would be cool to have a laser show in my living room!” and “I do need a spy pen to secretly record conversations!”
SkyMall is the American Dream.
SkyMall is the embodiment of having it all and then having enough left over to buy even more stuff. Stuff you don’t need.
Your cat does not need a water fountain to drink out of, but one exists, and you can buy it for Fluffy for just $79.95 plus shipping. You do not need a stuffed and mounted walleye that can play back your prerecorded voice or sing show tunes, but your uncle would probably think it was pretty funny…and his anniversary is coming up…probably…and you could always give it to him at Christmas…but that’s so far off that you could probably just put it on your own wall…
And before you know it, you’re pocketing the magazine with earmarked pages and making plans to furiously start ordering things once your plane is close enough to the ground to pick up WiFi.
When George Washington and Rosa Parks and your great great grandfather fought for equality and freedom, they probably didn’t think of SkyMall as the embodiment of their success, but it totally is.
Our founding fathers and mothers fought for their children to have a better life than they did, and by all accounts this is a pretty great era to live in. We’ve got issues, but we’re living decades longer than we used to in conditions that are for the most part extremely comfortable.
Our lives are so much better than those of our forefathers. We have indoor plumbing, refrigeration, sliced bread, Easy Mac and cell phones. Actually, if you compare millennials to their parents, they’ve got it considerably better too; Wifi, Wikipedia and debit cards are all common place items that give us the world at our fingertips.
Yes there is poverty. Yes there is evil. Yes there is inequality and injustice and disease, but a large number of Americans are comfortable enough to consider buying “Roswell the Alien Butler” or maybe more realistically, a glow in the dark toilet seat. Because how cool would that be?!?!?!
Consequently, people are free to worry about things that don’t actually matter, like what to wear or whether their dog needs a stool to get up on the bed at night. Think about it; some of the first Europeans who set foot in this country wore shoes as a safety precaution so that they didn’t die, not to look good.
Now, we have the option to buy this 25-pair shoe tower. TWENTY-FIVE PAIRS.
And it gets better.
Thanks to this fun Gawker article, I’ve learned that SkyMall appears to be just as twisted and American on the inside as it looks on the outside. It looks like there has been some fishy business going on; shadow companies have been absorbing shadow companies owned by suspicious-seeming characters. It’s like ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ meets ‘Office Space.’
As the world watches SkyMall to see what will happen, I am among those who hope for its survival.
Where else will I find a frog figurine doing yoga or an “evaporative cooling hat?” (Ew! By the way.)
What else will we look at to avoid making conversation with the person next to us?
WHAT WILL WE DO!?!
Frozen In The Forks 