Upgrades

Now I admit, I only heard the end of this sentence, so this may have had a profound beginning - but as I was leaving my fave coffee place yesterday, two 30'ish women are walking towards me and I hear..."so that I can move into the future without the baggage". Whoa!
When did 'baggage' become a dirty word? When did it become the catchword for all that is wrong with us and with our lives? Perhaps I should copyright the word. Or better yet - trademark the name 'Baggage' for a new line of handbags and sue every therapist who has their clients recite a litany of baggage they need to lose.

Losing your baggage is a really bad thing. The airlines lose your baggage all the time. Mine was lost in Auckland once. And twice in London, once in Berlin and a few times in LA. Ever heard of Baggage Reclaim?

What would you do without your baggage? Who are you without it?

I don't think it's the baggage we need to lose - I suggest upgrading the luggage you carry it around in. And if anyone would like to contact me about designing a line of bags with your favorite therapy line embroidered in pink on the side, there will be a $200 consultation fee payable in cash, thank you very much.

Speaking of upgrading. Does anyone downgrade?

Here's a typical appeal at the Check In counter in Monte Carlo:
"Hello, I'm Oliver Benton-Boothby-Sykes and I'm afraid I had a bit of a bad night at the tables. Going to need a bit of dosh to get a cab when I get back to London. I'm booked into Business, of course. What sort of refund can I get for downgrading today? Cargo? Perhaps? Can I still get the complimentary Mimosa?

Yeah, who downgrades? The only people I know who actively downgraded were my teachers. When I was a tortured 13 year old I once proudly stood up in front of my class and said I wanted to be an archaeologist. Silence fell on the room. And the teacher, stifling a belly aching laugh said calmly 'Jill, perhaps if you aimed a little lower?"

And at a different school when they bring in 'career counsellors' at the tender age of 16, I waxed enthusiastic about going to University. The woman across the desk leafed silently through the wad of documentation about me, her glasses sliding slowly down her nose. Finally, she looked up and said:
"Maybe you should consider teacher training college instead". So, I wasn't bright enough to go to Uni, but I would be fine teaching others how to teach. And if that scares you - it bloody should.

No wonder I went into the arts.

Comments

[meg oldman]

Hey Jill,

What an inspiring commentary...funny and painful at the same time. Gave me pause about so many things, as well as some powerful visions. Nicely done!

[5'1 photographer nestled in pittsburgh]

Agreed. Good entry. To put simply.

I think, (given I'm in the typical teenage hype and teacher-biased-path-of-feats currently,) the guidance counselor that is deemed to know everything about you, and even more so where you will be in 10 years, is having a tough time in realizing what’s going on around them, let alone your fate of academic proportions and lucid dreams of money surplus. But as an individual trained to guide your emotional needs, they must know much more about you as a person and what you’re idly (or more unbelievably, actively) toil to be comfortable for. More so than you, because as we all know, one at such a hormonal age cannot achieve anything by themselves, except pregnancy or HIV or self-diagnosed ADD). You both still know, and you both realize, that you’re nothing but the countless pages that lay sprawled across the table that defines you: 12 years spent screening you, letters that demean you, numbers of failures to follow a 6am routine, and the questions you didn’t care to answer correctly on the SATs will follow you like the soon-to-be-criminal that you are. Save the knowledge for the fools of tawdry, because all you need to know are the abilities to cheat your way, manipulate, and successfully be discriminated for your “individuality” against the other pedestrian, short-lived, pissed off worker bees and employees. You are nothing more than a mere statistic and yet they’ll say, “this test, this discussion, this class, this detention will help you for the more realistic life that you’ll be living.” Well, perhaps to you, that’s a given. You’re getting paid to persuade my opinion. But where’s the advice on how to file your taxes and what to do with the thousands needed yearly for college? How do you juggle the financial trouble and manage mortgages? The rich is becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer, this isn’t a democracy, just acts of titles and privileges and luck of procurers. Your opinion matters, really, until we know the bill payers. You can be anything but the wrong thing. Three oranges and a pear, what doesn’t belong here? We all know I.Q. tests are demeaning more than your brains and your ability to reading. Right is nice and the nice will be wronged, so which word doesn’t belong? Democratic or a republican or independents, who does more wrong by their name? If we’re talking about politics, why don’t we save time and label it “bull shit”? If people have more input on American Idol then the next selection at presidential election, then where the hell was good will, where the hell was Bill Clinton and prostitutions or Bush and phony election or corruptions? Don’t answer that. Abortion pills and homosexually ill, under freedom’s name an excuse to kill, the downfall of capitol hill, ¾ value of dollar bills, which of these seems to fulfill your cover-up of the oil drills? History is the study of who can make up a better story of American’s mysteries. Ready? Go. Let’s take all the text books and lies the teacher told you when you thought people would be caught dead being a hero and the disillusionment of patriots and damsels and the constitution wasn’t written because no one thought no, but the scribbling of fear and manhunt and a cowardly held a pen apropos.

But I am cut short of this dream of peace and deem of horrible dread. But this is the perspective of something more than the typical teenager’s head.