Damien Galeone

So I am flying to the U.S. in about 16 hours, and therefore I am doing what I normally do the day before a flight: worry. To be honest, I do not hate flying the way I used to. I used to treat the day before a flight as though it was my last on Earth. Every woman on the tram was the potential love of my life, every conversation my last, every hotdog a sentimental tubular affair. I would glare with jealousy at those who I presumed were remaining on the ground the next day.

But a few years ago, I realized the key to not becoming an emotional wreck was to relax the day before a flight. So I began watching silly movies, reading light books, and essentially filling my day with comedy rather than drama.

It was around that time that I realized the Internet hated me.

I click on a news site today, in the hopes of finding a light story to write about. Instead, I am greeted with headlines about dead babies, poor women dying, and a shark attack. Not just a shark attack, but a shark attack on someone who was already drowning. Surely the woman’s autopsy will reveal that she was also being struck by lightning at the exact same moment. Everything on the Internet makes me think of sadness, death, torture, and airplanes in some way.

Will there be a baby on the plane?

Will there be a poor woman on the plane?

Will there be a shark on the plane?

There is a guy named Snowden who’s trapped in an airport. I mean, c’mon!

As I settle into reason – post lunch euphoria + Jamesons on ice – I remember that the Internet has and always will be like this. If you are on the Internet and not looking at boobs, a cat, or someone with boobs holding a cat, then there’s a solid chance you are reading something negative. Nobody has money, someone famous said something stupid, someone killed an orphan, resuscitated them and killed them again, Snooki and Paris Hilton exist, Voldemort’s back.

There is no hope.

I run an experiment. I go to CNN’s website and jot down the first five headlines I lock onto. In less than twenty seconds I learn that someone plunged to their deaths, someone poisoned children, Hong Kong’s football players are dying, new evidence suggests that Michael Jackson killed Jimmy Hoffa (possible Jamesons induced hallucination). And finally, a politician is running for mayor after an infamous ‘sexting’ scandal.

All of these headlines depress me, and the last one makes me change my email password.

I won’t go into the oft-discussed negativity of the media, or sensationalism, or Snooki. I guess it would just be nice to be overwhelmed with positivity once in a while, or to be put at ease. At least the day before a flight.

And if they can’t write stories that put me at ease, can they at least have them read aloud by naked boobs holding cats?