Fly the Friendly Skies

Sweetie had been conspicuously absent all afternoon, so I went on a search for her. I found her in the upper gardens rezzing and crashing biplanes created by Twisted Laws' full-perm runway plane generator I had given her. She was training for her new job as an air traffic controller.

"Don't interrupt me!" she said. "I have forty-two Stearmans in the air!"

"And a dozen or so in flames on the ground," I commented. "And that one about to hit the torii.

She shrugged. "Acceptable losses."

If you keep up with news in the real world you probably know commercial flights have been stacked up for the past few days due to a shortage of air traffic controllers. And why is there a shortage? Because the controllers are being required to take mandatory no-pay furlough days because of the sequester-- you know, the delayed government cutbacks forced on Obama by the Republicans during his first term. We are now post delay and all sorts of government services are being scaled back. Don't even think about who's not inspecting your drinking water or the beef you had for dinner last night. Just be happy Sweetie will soon be on the job with the FAA.

"You didn't really get a job as an air traffic controller, did you?" I asked.

"Of course not," Sweetie said. "They would have red-flagged me for any number of reasons."

"Like being on the no-fly list," I said.

"Or wearing my katana during the job interview," she said.

"Or all those wanted posters," I said.

"I'm just going to show up in uniform and lockpick my way into the control tower," she said." "But I'll need to know what I'm doing, so I'm practicing."

"That runway is a bit crowded," I said.

"You should have seen it before I lost those twenty-four planes," she said. "And look straight down! The airplanes make a perfect image of John Lennon."

"I think he just winked," I said. "That's awesome!"

"Exactly," she said. "Straight lines are so boring."

"Sweetie," I said, "you can't lose any planes to art in real life."

She gave me a pitying look. "That's why I'm practicing."

I hope to God practice makes perfect.