#3 Flying Whine - Increased Security

#3     Increased Security

Whenever we land safely in a plane, 

we promise God a little something.

Mignon McLaughlin

Whine A: These lines are too long. 

Why: Sadly, ever since 9/11, increased airport security measures in the name of preventing terrorism have made traveling by air a dreaded ordeal. We now have to endure long lines waiting while pretending that we aren’t mentally profiling everyone else in our line. It creates an atmosphere of distrust and disgust. 

The stripping down and shedding of all outerwear is demanding and demeaning. As for shoes, who can remember to wear slip-ons? I never do until I find myself laboriously undoing my tie-ons in a supremely unflattering position.

Whine B: I hate having to strip.

Cure: The “check everything” cure is just a band-aid for getting through security. By everything I mean everything except your ID and ticket. This is the only chance you have to zip through security unscalded by suspicion and humility, and  even that is not a given if you have a foreign accent, forget to take off your sunglasses or just have “one of those faces.” 

I’ve thought of going through nude but I suppose that would be seen as a protest of some kind. My objective is purely convenience-oriented; besides, I wouldn’t want to repulse staff or fellow travelers—or, God forbid, put the idea of a cavity search in anyone’s head… 

#2 Flying Whine - Reservations

#2     Reservations

If God had meant man to fly, 

He would have given us tickets.

Mel Brooks

Whine A: They always put me on hold. 

Why: When you try to make reservations with any airline, it is like navigating a minefield of modern technology—and the people who are there as a last resort to help you with it are even less customer-friendly. 

As soon as your call goes through, you are put on hold—and then your problems begin. Endlessly circling in a telephonic holding pattern, you wait so long that you forget where you are or where you want to go. The worst part is that you’ll never speak to a real person—and it’s just not fun complaining to a machine.

Whine B: I hate talking to a machine. 

Cure:  The “express easy check-in e-ticket” cure is a new innovation that has made flying almost bearable. It is quick, easy and enjoyable once you have gone through the initial learning curve; and though it isn’t quite instant and doesn’t exactly involve the human touch, it is far less time-consuming and alienating than booking airline reservations on the phone with disembodied, oddly cadenced voices that sound only vaguely like real people. 

With most airlines, you can even print out boarding passes 24 hours before your flight, thus circumventing all human interaction until you have to deal with those fine professionals at security, which is the subject of our next whine.

Excerpted: Thou Shalt Not Whine....The Eleventh Commandment by January Jones

#1 Flying Whine - Airports

When you think about flying, it’s nuts really. 

Here you are at about 40,000 feet, 

screaming along at 700 miles an hour and you’re sitting there 

drinking Diet Pepsi and eating peanuts.

 

It just doesn’t make any sense.

David Letterman

Top Ten Whines About Flying

#1 Airports

If God had really intended men to fly,

He’d have made it easier to get to the airport.

George Winters

#1     Airports
There is nothing like an airport for 
bringing you down to earth.

Robert Gordon 

Whine A: I hate going there.

Why: Unfortunately, airports have become our worst nightmare. They are too crowded, too confusing, too big and too frustrating for the average traveler—whining heaven for the constant complainer. 

It all begins going downhill when you try to find a parking place or, God forbid, attempt to sit in the arrivals lane for more than two seconds without security chasing you off. 

And then there are those loud, obnoxious, repetitive Announcements that hound you from all sides, and all those annoying tourists…

Whine B: It’s such a mob scene. 

Cure: The “red-eye” cure is a brutal but effective way of dealing with impossible airports, especially for sound sleepers. Red-eye flights depart around midnight, when all sensible people are at home asleep, and arrive in the early hours of the next day. 

Red-eye fliers are easy to spot because their eyes are bleary and puffy and bruised-looking, and their clothes look like they have been slept in…because they have. 

On the other hand, they usually also display a serene smile and immitigable calm for having slept through whatever small amount of whining may have occurred while their eyes were so deliciously busy getting red.

Flying without Whining from TSNWhine by JANUARY JONES

Introductory Lesson

Flying without Whining

I begin with airline travel since overcoming whining while zooming through the air has been one of my greatest achievements in life. 

I was the first one in my family to ever fly in an airplane, and not too many of them, besides me, have done it to this day, coded as they are with the Whining About Flying DNA glitch. My Grandma always said that if God had wanted her to fly, he would have given her wings—and she truly meant it. This wisdom applied to driving for her too. She wasn’t born with tires attached to her legs, so she wasn’t about to ride in a car! 

In 1963, despite my inbred terror, I flew to Miami on Eastern Airlines for an interview to become an airline stewardess. I experienced such an incredible adrenaline rush on take off that I was barely able to breathe, let alone talk. In the air, I was thrilled to be defying the Law of Gravity. The landing was a cinch, since by then not only had I somewhat acclimated, but I had been able to drink enough wine to get me down without screaming or making a scene. Long story short, I was hired, but too proud to admit I couldn’t fly without whining. Actually I was so desperate to escape my boring life in Detroit that having to fly wasn’t enough to stop me.

Doing that job, I simply couldn’t whine on pain of dismissal, so I just enacted some recessive stiff-upper-lip gene and smiled through my troubles. Despite my continuing terror, I really wanted to be a stewardess in the worst way, and sometimes I certainly was.

Years later after my first husband was killed during a test flight, I continued to put on a brave front about flying for the sake of my children. Besides, I am addicted to doing things that scare me silly, especially when I am trying to stop whining about life.

To this day, it has been difficult to overcome the urge to indulge in whining while flying, mainly because I never have been able to understand how it all works. No matter how many times my second and current husband, also a pilot, explains to me the mechanics of flight, I still don’t get it. I never will be able to comprehend how a 747 airplane that weighs tons can lift off and soar through the skies. I do, however, have my own theory about how planes work: When I am on a plane during take off and lift my toes upward, the plane will lift up and off without any problems. I don’t know if not doing it might cause a crash because I have never, ever not done it. I must confess that this is not an original theory but rather one that was passed on to me early in my career. It came my way from an older, wiser and far more experienced stewardess who had already conquered her fear of flying. Upon the announcement of landing, one need only reverse the process and point the toes downward, and the plane will touch down with a comforting, fluid grace.

I can somewhat justify my previous problem of whining while flying because I experienced some really scary moments up in the air as a stewardess: emergency foamed-runway landings, hearing about other fatal accidents while serving cocktails, extreme conditions that made my life flash before my eyes—these were all part of the daily routine in my chosen career; another important part of it was to keep those things from the passengers so that they wouldn’t completely freak out.

As for being a passenger, what’s not to whine about, especially now with increased security, longer delays and an alarming trend for lost baggage? Fortunately, there’s no more whining about the poor quality of airline food since actual food is no longer served to those in coach. As Wolfgang Puck once said, “To me, an airplane is a great place to diet.”

Over the past few decades, I’ve considerably decreased the likelihood of my whining about flying because I can almost enjoy it when my pilot husband is in the cockpit. I can even sleep while he’s up front because I know that there is someone driving who wants to live as much as I do, if not more.

One of our favorite flights together was when we were invited to land on the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson in a Navy plane. Once on board, I spent the entire night thinking about being catapulted off the deck the next morning. It was terrifying when it happened, but I didn’t whine. I screamed a little as we were shot off the ship but I didn’t wet my pants.   

It seems my destiny was to fly, to wed fliers and to raise fliers. I have one daughter who is a pilot, two daughters who have been fight attendants and a son who is a non-whining frequent flyer. Even after all these years, I’m still a white-knuckled flier, but at least now I can talk about it. 

Take it from me: It’s possible to be fearful and brave at the same time just as long as you don’t whine about it! 

Excerpted: Thou Shalt Not Whine....The Eleventh Commandment by January Jones

Available at amazon.com

Welcome Thou Shalt Not Whine & The Pillow Whiner!

Welcome from January Jones!

Thou Shalt Not Whine......

The Eleventh Commandment

What we whine about, why we do it and how to stop!

Compiled & Written 

by  

January Jones 

In memory of my grandmothers,

Mary & Johanna  

They taught me about whining and winning.

Foreword

Everybody whines; just look around you wherever you go. We are currently experiencing a worldwide epidemic of whining, and it is only getting worse as the world throws more our way to whine about every day: terrorists, corporate raiders, the housing slump, the shrinking economy, expensive wars, ineffectual government, the hair-raising price of gas, cellulite, acid reflux, the effects of saturated fats. Everybody whines because everybody seems to have something to whine about these days. But just because it’s natural doesn’t mean it’s nice, and I’m here to put an end to it.

My name is January Jones, and I am the Whine Tester. Welcome to my book, and to my crusade to rid the world of this toxic, easily curable habit for once and for all.  

Have you ever wondered why so many people are constantly whining about this or that? Do you incessantly have to deflect the negative energy people spew by whining all around you? Have you ever wanted to tell them to just shut up and keep it to themselves? Has anyone near and dear to you driven you crazy with their whining and complaining? Have you ever asked yourself what they are really whining about? And have you ever wondered how to stop them—or, if whining is your own weakness—how to stop yourself?

Perhaps you don’t believe me. There are skeptics. Perhaps you think people are actually getting mellower and mellower as we evolve. In this case, indulge me by conducting a little experiment that has already proven successful in waking other doubters up to this growing problem. Don’t worry, it’s easy: simply keep your ears open next time you go out to do a series of errands about town. The retail arena is the prime sector of society for everyday whine cultivation and practice, as pointed out to me by one of my many survey subjects, whose own moment of revelation about the insidious prevalence of public whining went like this:

You were right! The other day while I was out and about running my usual boring errands, I noticed that everywhere I went, people were whining, and wondered why I hadn’t noticed it before. While I was at Whole Foods, one woman was whining about the express self-service check out being too slow—and it was! Next stop, I found myself in the long, gray line at the post office, and every single person there was whining, whether it was a loud “Come on!”, a forceful sigh or a simple rolling of the eyes. After that it was on to the gas station, where the outrageous prices were causing a spontaneous whine fest among the self-serve customers at my island. I tried to resist, but I couldn’t help joining in…   

I have since successfully helped this complainer and many others to stop whining and start winning instead, and I am hoping this book will help you to do the same. Now, you may be asking, “What makes this January Jones person one of the world’s foremost experts on whining?” And right you are to do so. I hold no degrees in psychology or sociology, but my experience has been more valuable and useful than any mere degree could have been. First of all, I used to suffer from the whining disease myself. Like most girls, I was born a natural whiner. I knew how to get just about anything I wanted by whining, and I quickly mastered all the standard whining tactics while creating some new ones along the way. 

 

My second qualification is that I’m a woman, which means that I can be anything I want to be—and change my mind about what that is whenever I feel like it. Currently I am a golfer, a writer, a wife, a widow, a mother and a grandmother. Also, I host a radio show and publish a weekly e-zine called Whine Time. When it comes to whining, nobody does it better or knows how to stop it more effectively than I do. 

As the Whine Tester, I have come up with my own “theories” to aid in my research and whine therapy. I would love to share with all my readers my Grand Whinestein Theory. Granted, it’s not as paradigm-shattering, nor do I believe it will remain as timeless, as Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, which we all know comes down to the eloquent e=mc² (even if we have no idea what it means). 

I am not now nor have I ever been a scientist, and I know it is presumptuous of me to even write about Albert Einstein, but I had no choice. A skeptic once said that I had as much chance of writing a book about whining as I had of writing a book about Einstein. So, non-believer, wherever you now may be, here it is just for you. I’m now writing about whining and Einstein, all in one book—and on one page, no less. Einstein explained space and time to us through high science, and I now offer my own humble findings on the folk science of the whine:

January Jones’s Whinestein Theory 

W=MC²

(Whining=MajorComplaining, squared)

In order to expand upon this theory, I developed a technique for diagnosing severity of dysfunction and prescribing curative therapy. My Four Star “A” rating system is designed to help both victims and verbalizers to recognize and address this epidemic. 

One-Star: Annoying; causing mild anger or impatience.

Intention of Perpetrator: 

I just want to complain and get sympathy.

Two-Star: Attention-hording; requiring unwilling mental focus and causing strong impatience.

Intention of Perpetrator: 

You WILL acknowledge me, NOW. 

Three-Star: Aggravating; causing severe anger or irritation that can lead to rage.

Intention of Perpetrator: 

I really want to drive you CRAZY!

Four Star—Abusive: causing psychological harm or worse through thorough insult and offense.

Intention of Perpetrator: I will not stop until I have irreparably damaged you by verbal attack….

NOTE: This is a serious problem and I don’t like to deal with or validate it in any way, shape or form. If you feel that you or someone you know is a victim of abusive whining, please call a psychoanalyst or the proper authorities

. 

Now I’d like to share with you how my stop-whining system, and this book, works. There are twelve chapters, each one dealing with the top ten whines you are likely to hear from a certain part of your community or family, followed by how to deal with them. 

To give you a vivid example, here I’m going to let you in on a whining problem that I have been dealing with throughout my long, long marriage. In this book, you can find this specific whine and its associated cures in Chapter Four (Couples), and it is this, more than anything, that has made me the truly well-versed expert I am today:  

My husband is a Three-Star Pillow Whiner. This may not seem like much of a problem to you, but let me tell you about it. It started out as a simple One-Star Annoying Whine. We’d go to bed at night and he would start throwing the pillows from the bed on the floor. “Why do we have so many pillows? I need one and you need one. Why are there ten pillows on our bed?” Now, this was something I could ignore since wives are good at ignoring husbands. 

Very soon, though, he became a Two-Star Pillow Whiner. He wanted attention, and he knew just how to get it: he went public! I couldn’t believe it. There we were out to dinner with another couple, and my husband leans over to casually ask the other husband, “How many pillows do you have on your bed?” Well, the other man had no idea and he had to ask his wife. Pretty soon, we were all having pillow talk…in public! 

Then my husband went over the top by turning into a Three-Star Whiner on the spot. Once the other husband had ascertained the pillow count on their bed from his wife—which, my husband pointed out with a raised eyebrow to me, was a smaller number than so annoyingly inhabited our own bed—my husband came out with this: “Tell me, are you ever allowed to touch the pillows?” I was flabbergasted, but he went on: “Are you allowed to take them off at night or put them back on the bed in the morning? And if you dare to, don’t they always turn out to be put back the wrong way?!”  

The other wife and I shared a copasetic glance that included not only sympathy for our shared lot as women, but solidarity in the unassailable fact that no man on earth has ever or ever will put the pillows back on the bed well enough to please his wife. 

How do you deal with a Three-Star Pillow Whiner? In this case, I have used the Universal Smile Cure to great success. It is done with a sincere smile and goes like this: “Honey, how about if we go out for a romantic dinner tonight?” This is followed by, “Sweetie, if you promise not to discuss our bedroom pillows anymore with other men, after dinner we can cuddle in front of the fireplace for our own pillow talk,” Then you can finish up with, “Who knows, maybe we can count the pillows together as we toss them on the floor, and then you’ll know for sure how many we have.” 

Well, you get the idea! Everyone agrees that smiling is better than whining.

While smiling is universal, though, it’s not everyone who can crack a winning smile at will. Smiling is something that some people are born doing while others can’t be taught to do it. I’m one of those born to smile, while my husband only smiles as a last resort. 

One time our family auditioned for the Family Feud game show, and my husband had to go to smiling therapy before we could get on. Once we were on stage with Richard Dawson, he couldn’t stop smiling. It was a manic, nervous, hysterical, scary smile that none of us is likely to see again, but it was fortunately saved for posterity on home video. 

I have the opposite problem in that I can’t stop smiling. Once I was even smiling when I came out of the operating room on a stretcher in a semi-conscious state. Life is usually easier for anyone who smiles, but it can create some pitfalls. 

For example, it can be inappropriate at most funerals. It is difficult when I don’t know the bereaved family that well and I’m there smiling like the Sunshine Lady. Church and serious stage plays are also treacherous territories for me to navigate. The problem is that smiles can quickly escalate into hysterical, inappropriate behavior. I can’t count the times that I have looked across the aisle connecting with another smiling idiot as we dissolved into uncontrollable laughter. 

Despite my own self-inflicted problems with smiling, I still highly recommend it as a cure for whining. Smiling will disarm a whiner every time. It is impossible to whine while returning a smile. True whiners will be torn between whining or ignoring you, either of which would make them rude. And even the most inveterate of whiners knows that being rude is much worse than being a compulsive complainer. 

The best thing about the smiling cure is that you can pretty much say or do anything as long as you have a smile on your face. It is one of my favorites, but you will find over 100 cures for over 100 whines in this book to add to your bag of tricks. These cures have been culled from years of personal research along with a survey of several hundred people of different ages, genders, races and social strata. 

Whining is a toxic topic that the survey subjects responded to with amazing and revealing honesty and humor. The top ten whines for all age groups are exposed and dealt with in this book, along with cures that work. 

Doing this survey has been one of the most enjoyable projects that I have ever undertaken. Each day my e-mail brings me humorous, creative replies from so many people from all over the world that I already have enough whines to fill up a few more volumes. It has been a real education. 

I feel like I’ve become Clearing House Central for the complaining and whining in our world; and here, for the first time, I am able to share my experience and findings with you and yours. 

I hope you enjoy finding your favorite whiners in the following pages; and if you happen to find yourself, whatever you do, don’t whine about it!