The classics

Today, I'm getting inspiration from "A Treasury of College Humor" (1950). Reading this book has solicited all sorts of leers from the writer folk at Psychobabble cafe. I feel like the kid in the lunch room who got a Hostess Cupcake in his lunchbox.

From Robert Benchley's "Traffic Regulations for Air-Lanes" (1912, abridged)

Examination for Urban Pilot's License

This examination is to be taken while still on the ground.

• Are you quite sure that you really want to fly? Remember--no fair changing your mind once you are up.
  
• Do you have an uncontrollable desire to jump from great heights?
  
• If you answered "Yes" to the preceding question, just what arrangement would you make for the disposition of your ship if you should give in to your whim to jump?
  
• Aside from their characteristic noises, what are the main differences between an oncoming airplane and an oncoming sea-gull?
  
• Does the term "flying blind" mean the same as "flying drunk?"
  
• How many drinks do you consider "a couple?"
  
• A ship, which is passing you, forces you out of your traffic lane into the path of an oncoming ship, which forces you up into the path of a descending ship, which forces you down in to the path of an ascending ship. What do you do? What difference does it make?
  
• Name three popular directions besides "up."
  
• On a rough guess, how high is "up?"
  

Mechanics: Don't forget. Each one of these little instruments has its own special use, and only one of them plays the radio.

• The Altimer: This tells you how high you are. Don't look!
  
• The Pessimeter: Tells you how low you are.
  
• Gasoline Gauge: This will tell you when you have run out of gas. Another sign is when pedestrians begin coming up and peering into your cockpit at you, or a man rushes out and asks you to get off his lawn.
  

Would this have been funny in 1812, 100 years before it was written? I mean, if the thought of human flying machines didn't simply terrify the British sailors blockading American ports. Will it be funny 100 years from now? I get the feeling that my grandchildren will not laugh at a single thing I do. Maybe I should get some puppets. That's the future, you know.