Weekly Shot #19 – Bad Ideas

And why we need to forgive them.

This week I walked into a door. This was the result of two bad ideas. The first bad idea was texting and walking and trying to open a door at the same time. At the age of 34 I am not equipped to multi-task at this high of a level. The second bad idea was that the place I was walking into decided to lock one of its two doors. Can someone please enlighten me on why this is a thing in the first place? What is the point of having two doors, only to lock one of the doors? It’s infuriating. Not only does it impede the flow in and out of the store but it also leaves at least half of the people feeling so idiotic for trying the wrong door that they may never want to frequent your store again. At the very worst, a moron like me walks directly into it like a bird flying into a window.

For the rest of the week my eyes were opened to bad ideas. It’s like the bad ideas flocked to me. I was a bad idea magnet. Here’s the list I came up with:

Non-alcoholic beer sold in a liquor store

I don’t think I really need to go into this one more. The statement says all you need to know. But…I will anyway. Imagine you’ve decided that drinking alcohol isn’t your thing, by force or by choice, but you’d still like to fit in and have a couple 0.0% beers in a social setting. You decide you’re going to pick up some O’Doul’s and you walk into your glorious local liquor store to buy it. There are racks of red wine, there are bottles of gin and tequila, there is Guinness and Modelo Negro and Miller Highlife all staring you in the face as you try and get to the stupid little corner that holds the non-alcoholic beer. Good luck getting past all the good stuff. This sounds like an alcoholic’s worst nightmare.

But if you drink enough of it you get fucked up, right?

Letting people who mastermind 9/11 get plea deals

Another one that sounds so idiotic it can’t be true. First of all, I know this is America and even the worst of the worst “deserve” a trial. But please, for the love of God, GIVE ME A FUCKING BREAK. This guy deserves a public hanging the same way he gave 2,976 people a public death. This man piece of human garbage should be hung from the tippy top of the One World Trade Center and left there as a warning like we were ancient Rome. The message would be clear – do not fuck with us. I can’t imagine how the families of the victims feel. I’m not a big protest guy but this might be a cause worth protesting. If only Khalid Sheikh Mohammed somehow had ties with Jeffery Epstein he might have gotten offed in jail. Alas, he’ll live out his remaining days being fed on taxpayer dime. What a joke.

Not Drinking On A Plane

A New York Times article was written a week ago asking the question “Is It A Bad Idea To Drink Alcohol On An Airplane?” I’ve put the link here if you want to read it gouge your eyes out. For all the dumb articles I’ve read from the New York Times in recent memory this is by far the dumbest. The better question is – is it a bad idea NOT to drink alcohol on an airplane? The answer to that question is yes. For one, it’s romantic as fuck. I wish we could go back to a time where Pan Am ruled the sky, everyone travelled in business attire, and we were allowed to hotbox the bitch with cigarettes. Alas, we live in different times. But that doesn’t change the fact that drinking on a plane is a necessity. My drinking on planes started about 8 years ago. I was on a flight from Ibiza to Barcelona. As we were about to land the plane went into a 90-degree upward motion and it felt like we were heading for the moon on a rocket ship. There were erratic messages from the cockpit in Spanish that sounded like we were for sure going down. I thought that would be my last moment on earth. Consequently, that was the last time I was not inebriated on a plane. You have to ask the question – why is someone always writing an article trying to take the good stuff away from us? Just leave us alone. We do not care that our blood pressure is higher on a plane or that our sleep is going to be impaired by a couple drinks – we just want to spend $150 on 3 little mini bottles for a bit of a buzz when we’re trapped in a tin fucking can 30,000 fucking feet in the air moving at 500 miles per fucking hour.

I get as drunk as a bridesmaid on any/every flight

Not giving people grace to have bad ideas

I admit I might be going hard on all these bad ideas. Someone has to be called out for stupidity. But that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t be given some grace to turn a bad idea into a good one. I’m bringing this up after a tweet I sent out this past week saying: I would love for a politician to say just once – “Were going to try this and if it doesn’t work, we’ll try the other thing!”

Now this may be a chicken or the egg type of problem. It’s likely possible that politicians decide on a policy and then double and triple down on it out of some sort of megalomanic pride. They were elected after all, they must be right! But it’s also possible that we the people don’t give anyone grace for being wrong. Instead, we drag them for every bad decision that was made for four years until we run them out of office only for the next person to come up to the podium and do the same thing. Maybe if we the people decided on collective forgiveness politicians might be more open to changing their minds. I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. But a bad idea is only truly bad when you’re called out on it and don’t change it.

P.S. - Honorable Mention: Going to Russia if you’re a journalist