Wheeled Wonders or Hell on Wheels?
I remember the first suitcase I owned that sported wheels, an advancement (or so I thought) that rivaled the initial use of the wheel on the cart or the chariot or the windmill. Brilliant! (It's great to be the creature with thumbs and a big brain.)
Unfortunately my tweedy off-brand gliding behemoth only
lasted a trip or two before the wheels ground the bearings to dust, transforming my wheeled wonder into a fashionable box too heavy and too large for this bicep-challenged boy to move without benefit of a sea crane or a pod of bouncers.
lasted a trip or two before the wheels ground the bearings to dust, transforming my wheeled wonder into a fashionable box too heavy and too large for this bicep-challenged boy to move without benefit of a sea crane or a pod of bouncers.
If nothing else, wheels have allowed us to load up every plane cabin with crap we really don't need to cart on. I dare say flights would operate 99 percent on time if passengers were only allowed to bring on board what they could carry in their own little mitts. It's called a carryon after all.
This week, Seth Johnson, a contributing writer for Slate, tackled the subject as Op-Ed Contributor for The New York Times. His editorial Hell on Wheels exposes the seamy underside of our wheeled addiction.