On cracking down

From: Laurence Shandy
To: Colleen Barrett, Southwest Airlines president
Re: Dress Code

Dear Ms. Marrett,

Notable raconteur Laurence Shandy here. I hope I'm not mistaken in assuming you're a woman. I've racked my brain trying to think of a man with the name "Colleen" and come up short, but I've also been unsuccessful in my attempt to find another major company with a female president.

Regardless, I'd like to congratulate you and Southwest for your recent corporate crackdown on innuendous novelty t-shirts. I understand your public face wears a different expression. You can apologize all you want for "rogue" employees "infringing" on passengers' free-speech rights. I might even agree with your condemnation of dress code enforcement when it comes to scantily-clad ladies. That girl you kicked off the plane for wearing a miniskirt and a tanktop? Well, I can't get behind that kind of censorship. Many's the flight where my close proximity to a bra-less coed struggling with her overhead bag has been my only entertainment. A few minutes in the bathroom alone with my mental images can always beat the pants off a warm towel and another in-flight screening of Cheaper by the Dozen 2.

But banning novelty shirts? That I can get behind. You can always tell the people who have no sense of humor by how hard they try for a laugh. I'm all for your "rogue" employee's decision to ban a shirt advertising an imaginary fishing store with the words "master baiter". Such trash is, in fact, offensive--not to my delicate disposition, but to my appreciation for the comedy greats. You won't find the pithy wit of H.L. Mencken or Oscar Wilde on one of those shirts. No, those are the kind of shirts that litter the sale bins at the mall. Those are shirts for date rapists and college drop-outs.

I made no complaint when I was kicked off a flight for wearing my "There's no 'I' in 'Al-Qaeda'" shirt. How could I expect those flight attendants to believe I'd just come from an Islamic irony convention? You can tell a lot about a person from the clothes they wear, and if we (and by "we", I mean "you") begin restricting the rights of the world's "bikini inspectors", "muff divers", and "master baiters", then perhaps we'll finally cut down on Dave Matthews Band ticket sales, Dane Cook films, and fetal alcohol syndrome.

You're doing good work, Ms. Barrett. Keep it up, and you just might have a future in this business.

Best wishes,
Laurence Shandy, gentleman