The Brutality Report - Force Majeure

Two weeks ago, a close relative of mine died and I had to fly up to Oregon. I'd planned on having some emergency columns ready to go for just such an occasion, but I'd already used these up for previous emergencies. I was caught empty handed. VICE, I hoped, would file my absence under “Force Majeure.”

Force majeure is a standard feature of contract law, freeing both parties from legal obligations in the event of acts of God (volcano, asteroid, zombies) or man (strikes, riots, robots). The sooner you acquaint yourself with force majeure, the smoother your life as an adult will be. It can ruin your Christmas or launch party, but it can also get you out of jury duty or writing columns. If you're a Road Warrior street hobo living outside the parameters of society, you need to know this concept all the more, as it is basically your life. If you are a jivey street rapper, you need this concept even more still (it's the only phrase that rhymes with "horse manure").

I pondered all this at the airport the night of my departure. This was in Ontario, the sleepy rump of Los Angeles County. The Ontario airport basically shuts down after 5 PM, so the terminal was eerily quiet. As acts of God go, it was a squeaker.

Suddenly, more force majeure went down. A small woman from United Airlines announced that the stewardess for our airplane had taken ill. The flight could not go on. They might, she said, be able to reroute some of us through LAX. This statement had a faint comic pathos, like something cheery you'd tell a child after their parents had been shredded by hyenas. To get to LAX, we'd all have had to cross the most populous county in the United States—racing across the equivalent of Delaware and Rhode Island—and then hope that no acts of God would befall the Los Angeles airport as well.

The quiet lobby exploded. Because one of my pastimes is watching public businessman meltdowns, I lingered near the ticket counter. I wasn't disappointed. One stout fellow raged. "Come ON!" he yelled, beseeching God via an 86,000 employee airline via its few visible human operatives. "I mean, COME ON!" I made eye contact with one of the defensive employees and communicated, with my mind, I get it. Force majeure.

The Santa Ana winds struck that night. East coasters have no frame of reference for the spooky scariness of these SoCal windstorms.  I lay awake in the bed I should not have been sleeping in, listening to the gusts rip through my neighborhood like a giant drunk ghostzilla. Things crashed and exploded in the darkness. Before retiring for the night, I'd read that the winds had knocked out power to LAX, and I lay awake in bed, imagining the darkened terminal, filled with the whoops and wails of enraged businessmen.

The angry businessman from my own aborted flight would also be experiencing this storm, as would the ill stewardess, all of us trapped in the same county for the night. I wondered what they would be making of such a terrifying personification of force majeure. Perhaps the businessman would resolve to keep his cool in the future. Maybe the stewardess would resolve to never again do tequila oyster shooters before an important flight. Possibly they'd meet the next day at SFO and fall in love, both of their lives irrevocably rerouted by several simple acts of God.

(But then their plane would implode on takeoff. Irony, right?)

Previously - Green Day

@sammcpheeters