Listen, everyone. I’m a generous person. I care about others and I enjoy doing favors. But just a heads-up: from this point forward, I will only be accepting gratitude in the form of planes flying at supersonic speeds over my head.
Sorry, other forms of appreciation. There’s a new sheriff in town, and her name is Jet Flyovers. Flowers, you’re beautiful, and I appreciate your ability to brighten a room. But there’s no way you could ever be as arresting as six F/A-18 Hornets doing Mach I in a dangerously tight formation. Bottle of Wine Accompanied by a Thoughtful Note Written in Fancy-Looking Ink, you’re delightful. But can you bend the speed of sound? I didn’t think so. The bar’s been raised. Specifically, it’s now 2,100 feet above street level and it’s currently doing donuts over the Empire State Building.
My new flyover-only policy applies to all favors, regardless of difficulty or time invested. Want help moving? Sure. But fair warning: once the last box of kitchenware has touched down in your new brownstone, you better not hit me with some boilerplate offer of “pizza and beer.” I didn’t just give up my entire Saturday to eat Domino’s and sip IPAs. I did it to hear the thunderous sound of military-grade jets in civilian airspace.
I’m not asking for much here.
Oh, also, my thank you flyover better be a terrifying surprise. I understand that you might have legal responsibilities, like submitting permits and alerting local residents, but in an ideal world, I want to know that the airshow is coming just far enough in advance that when it happens, I’ve forgotten about it and my first thought is, “What the fuck is that?” I want to run outside, having just missed the planes in the sky and be forced to turn to Twitter to see if anyone is posting about the “strange noises.” Not to put too fine a point on it, but I want to feel like America is under attack. If I don’t fear that we’re in the midst of a military invasion, I simply won’t consider your appreciation sincere.
This goes without saying, but it needs to cost a ton. Military-grade jets aren’t cheap, but neither is gratitude. I expect the cost of these displays to be in the tens of millions of dollars. Bonus points if that money could have been used elsewhere, like improving schools. Hey, it wasn’t the nation’s youth who did you a solid. It was me, and I want to feel my building shaking like God Himself is having sex upstairs.
The environmental impact of my thank-you airshow should be incalculable. Let me put it this way: if the process of acknowledging my good deed doesn’t have the carbon footprint of two thousand Hummers idling in a parking garage for an hour, you’re doing it wrong.
Okay, that’s it. Thank you for reading. I genuinely appreciate it. Don’t believe me? Look out your window.