Laughter is contagious

Image by Willgard Krause from Pixabay

I’ve been doing a bit of simulator flying this last year in Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020. I’ve mostly been doing some sightseeing occasionally, using an old Xbox gamepad. It gets the job done, however, when I started flying in VR some problems arose when it was time to land the plane. I find the landing the most challenging part of a flight, by far. One critical aspect of landing is throttle control, because when landing you want to go slow, but not below the stall speed. I have lost count on the number of times I plummeted from the sky because of stalling and hopeless throttle control. Last week, I had enough and started scanning the 2nd hand market for a HOTAS system (Hands On Stick And Throttle). That is the flying equivalent to getting a steering wheel for your racing games. I finally found a seller, and it turned out to be a real feelgood story.

HOTAS systems are available from dirt cheap to exclusive military approved replicas of real planes. As with just about anything, it is usually a bad idea to go for the cheapest one, but once you reach a certain quality level, you get less and less bang for your buck. I went for the middle road and got a Thrustmaster T.16000M which has all the bells and whistles you need for a reasonable price. I sent a message to the seller on Blocket (Swedish version of Ebay). The HOTAS was still available, so I said I’ll take it. I got a good gut feeling instantly so I simply paid him in advance so that he could start the shipping process. Then we had a funny conversation regarding how to send it, as he only had the original box and no tough package that could survive the harsh treatment from the postal couriers. He first sent a picture of a box that was like 95% of the proper size, but un-closeable. And then came a new pic where he had put the HOTAS in a toilet paper box of good size. He also used toilet paper to fill the empty space in the box on all sides for added protection. And pictures were dropping in my inbox as the process proceeded, which was quite funny. He assured me that it was not a shitty HOTAS, even though it would arrive covered in TP. A while later it was on it way to me.

Some days later, I went to the post office to pick up my package. The lady behind the counter gave me a somewhat troubled look and said, “Sorry, I think you package might have some damage”. And then I saw the package and broke down in laughter. The lady brought forward a toilet paper box, wrapped in Christmas gift paper, but only like 70% done, and there were streams of toilet paper hanging out form the sides. It was hands down the ugliest package I have ever got, and I loved it. This guy clearly has a wonderful sense of humor. Check out this video and you’ll understand. 😂 When I sent the video to him, he replied that “Dude, remember that you can sell the TP for a profit now that the pandemic starts all over!”. This was turning into a very good deal indeed, perhaps the best one I’ve made, because I had not considered that lucrative prospect!

I imagine that when he went to the store to send his package, he noticed that they had brought out the Christmas wrapping gear and decided it was a good idea. The fact of the matter is that he spent a minute or two of his precious time to wrap up the package with Santa Claus paper, an act that he absolutely did not have to do but did anyway. I am certain that >99% of sellers would not have done this. However, I am also quite sure that <1% of buyers would have laughed their ass off as hard as I did. So, it was clearly a good match and a win-win situation. I had a pretty rough week at work and felt a bit down. And after this, I was just smiling on the inside and laughed on and off the rest of the day. At first, I was a bit skeptical to buy 2nd hand, because the price difference to a brand new HOTAS was almost negligible when shipping costs was included. But I went on my gut feeling and as always, the gut was correct. Always trust your gut.

So, the moral of this story is to show how important it is to make other people smile. Throw a stone in the water and ripples will spread. I noticed that at the time of this writing around 700 people had seen the funny video with the package and judging from the comments and reactions they also laughed. What a wonderful demonstration of the Butterfly effect. Spend one extra minute to create the ugliest Christmas package in human history and make a thousand people laugh. Small things like these WILL make a difference. And laughter will make our world a better place. Thanks again Johannes.