Irony

Irony is a truly delicious treat in life, but it is enjoyed by very few people. When one of my pompous bosses in a previous job would tell be what I was doing wrong, he of course completely ignored the fact that he was essentially articulating every flaw he himself possessed. The irony of his projection those undesirable traits on me was almost too much for me to keep a strait face. Apart from getting me into trouble sometimes because I laugh at inopportune moments, I enjoy seeing the irony in life. One of my favorite bits of irony was pointed out to me by a professor a while back. He explained how Ralph Nader and other consumer advocates had been lobbying for years for children under two years old to have to sit in safety seats in airplanes. This sounds great on the surface, but as soon as you start looking in deeper, it becomes absurd. First of all, no safety seat in the world is going to protect your child when the aircraft enters the ocean at 500 mph. You’re toast; admit it. But the unintended consequences of such an action are the truly ironic part. If children under two have to have safety seats, they have to have their own ticket rather than sit in their parents’ laps. This makes air travel more expensive for families, which has been proven to deter air travel. Thus, more children will be traveling long distances in cars, which is statistically much more dangerous than flying in a commercial aircraft. The result of requiring safety seats would literally result in more deaths of infants in car crashes. I hope Nader can see the irony of the argument.