Be a Christina

 I haven't flown Southwest Airlines in years, and with each passing year it becomes increasingly unlikely that I ever again will. The open seating plan is a cattle call. They cancel flights at the drop of a hat. They're not really all that much cheaper than the Big Three US-based carriers these days. Then there was that time a Southwest pilot with an open mic was caught deriding California's Bay Area and its people which, as I wrote about at the time, seemed to reveal a bit more than the company would like for us to know about what they really think of their passengers. The one thing Southwest had going for them, the company's longstanding commitment to including two checked bags with each regular fare, is now out the window. It all paints a picture of a corporate culture that can barely hide its disdain for us, like Randal (Jeff Anderson) in the 1994 Kevin Smith film Clerks when he says, "This job would be great if it wasn't for the fucking customers".

I'm also an adult. I have the maturity to realize that generalizations about an organization as large and complex as a major airline are, at best, a starting point. Edge cases and exceptions are going to be so prevalent as to limit the usefulness of any rule that one might infer. 

On 22 March, 2024, someone on the social media side at Southwest posted a truly heartwarming edge case. A young girl was traveling with her favorite stuffed animal—named Dog Dog—and her mother. At the Southwest terminal of Dallas Love Field, the girl and her mother realized that Dog Dog had been left behind in the rental car. A Southwest employee identified in the post as Christina drove to the rental car agency and picked up Dog Dog, leading to a successful reunion of Dog Dog and the girl. The post features a series of photos chronicling Dog Dog's adventures on the journey home. The story of attachment to a favorite childhood toy is so universal that Christina's kindness to a stranger cannot help but tug on one's heartstrings. Or so I thought.

Against my better judgement, I scrolled through the comments. About half were supportive and congratulatory. The other half were varying versions of accusing Southwest of pulling a publicity stunt to distract us from the company's new bag fees and other lapses in service. Those comments were smug, divorced from context, and, sadly, completely predictable.

I've written before about how the 1970s was a time of self-satisfied and unhelpful cynicism. The 2020s in numerous ways—so numerous that they might be a good topic for a future blog post—are resembling the 1970s. While I can enjoy disco, computers that boot into BASIC interpreters, and CHiPs reruns as much as the next person, I'm here to tell you that we can do without the cynicism. Cynicism is intellectually lazy—a shortcut to sounding more clever than you really are. 

Cynicism about acts of kindness isn't just lazy; by deliberately diminishing the value of kindness, it's downright cruel. We certainly don't need any more cruelty. In a world that isn't suffering from any shortage of Elon Musks and Andrew Tates, this might be a good time to consider the value of celebrating and encouraging the Christinas. Safe travels, Dog Dog.