Know Jack #521 Pants on Fire

I’m a fiction writer. It’s work even though I love it. Of course, there are some aspects of it that I love more than others, like typing The End...I really love that part. As a fiction writer, there are some assumptions I make about my work. The first is that my readers understand that I am spinning…not lies exactly, but imaginary tales that sound real. I don’t expect them to make life decisions based on what I say.

This last week, I found there are others who make a living regularly telling fanciful fictions to their customers. Fanciful fictions is a kind way of saying they are not intentionally lying to me. The difference between a fiction writer and these folks is that they expect their customers to believe everything they are told.

It is true enough that fees are not hidden if they are lost in a long rambling legalese only a lawyer would understand. They are right there in print. There is no need, nor mandate, to discuss them further. It is the same device that fiction writers, especially mystery writers, use. The information is available, if you happen to spot it, not to be revealed until the party’s over.

If you’re wondering, I did not get taken in by a slick sales pitch. Sometimes, even the best mystery writer tips their hand by the words they use. Unlike federal judges, salespeople have to live or die by the language of the contract. Our fellow asserted there were no hidden fees. It was true, then he died by saying “fee”. It was not technically hidden; it was just unspoken until the story required him to say it.

Truths can be spoken and still get lost in translation. Most jobs have a language all their own. Nursing is like that. Nurses learn all kinds of terms before being told never to use them when speaking to people without a medical background. The same is not true for people working for airlines. When confronted with the fact that a delayed flight made connecting flights impossible, we were told not to worry. We would make our next flight because “We do this all the time”.

I’m a former aircraft ground crew chief. I know flight schedules and aircraft are temperamental creatures. Yet even I didn’t know that airline language of assurance meant all their flights arrive late, they delay take-off times until the flight crew saunters across the airport, and planes wait on ground crews to arrive at the gate before they park. I don’t think that’s any way to run an airline, but I guess it works for them. After all, they do it every day and are somehow still in business.

My travel experience was more chilling than frustrating. Bigfoot, rougarous, werewolves, and monsters seem less fictional now than ever before.