Absurdly Driven looks at the world of business with a skeptical eye and a firmly rooted tongue in cheek.
Where do you stand on taking your shoes off?
On a plane, that is.
Some say it’s necessary because your feet swell on a long flight, so your shoes become uncomfortable.
Others insist that it’s a putrid habit, especially when shoeless people waddle off to the restroom and spread all sorts of detritus from their feet.
The habit can, indeed, lead to troubling emotions.
Just ask the Kaliningrad Police Department.
Here’s a Ministry of Internal Affairs report of a December 15 incident that apparently started on a plane and ended in a parking lot.
A man on an unidentified flight — but thought to be Moscow to Kaliningrad, a mere 686 miles — apparently took his shoes off.
It seems, though, that his seatmate wasn’t uplifted by this behavior.
It was his judgment, you see, that the shoeless man’s feet emitted an awful smell.
Such disagreements can normally be quelled, either by reason and compromise exerting their influence, or by a Flight Attendant’s intervention.
I do recall, though, that taking off one’s shoes has a special significance in Russian culture. USSR leader Nikita Khrushchev took off his shoe at the United Nations General Assembly in 1960 and began banging it on the table.
That caused international friction. The shoe incident on the plane, though, initiated a friction all of his own.
Instead, the Ministry, relying on police reports, revealed: “After landing, the men continued to clarify the relationship in the guest parking lot. According to preliminary data, a resident of Svetlogorsk took out a knife and struck an opponent in the chest area, causing a penetrating wound with damage to the heart. It is established that in self-defense Kaliningrad defended himself against the attacker with a wooden beam with nails hammered into it, picked up nearby.”
Yes, it seems that the two couldn’t come to an accommodation.
Perhaps the narrow conditions in planes these days aren’t conducive to reasoned behavior.
But here we have a passenger allegedly behaving in a way in which, some might jest, even United Airlines wouldn’t conceive.
Law enforcement officials uttered a plea to flyers and, really, all humans everywhere.
“The police calls the inhabitants of the region to solve any conflicts that arise peacefully! Violence and aggression do not lead to anything good!” said the department’s statement.
What do you mean “does aggression include hacking elections?”?
I have no idea what you’re taking about.