I always find the sort of hyped strategy displayed, for example, by the likes of Fran & Barry at the Athens International Airport grating on the nerves. It's actually like replacing what should be raw competitiveness and a grand strategy with a reflexive non-strategy — a strategy (of sorts) for some unable to compete on a more critical level. I find it almost a childish reaction in groundless fear.

By David W. Taylor (Email The Author)
Reality Reel Media
04.23.06

So, Fran & Barry reach the ticket counter of Gulf Air and get flight information and tickets for the trip to Oman. Walking away from the travel desk they run into Eric & Jeremy. Fran & Barry stop and stand transfixed as Eric & Jeremy expectedly question them on their flight plans. Barry, glued to the airport floor, merely releases a strange sounding, "Hmm," signaling that he's not about to share his mother lode of airline routing knowledge — actually wildly available public information to any knucklehead with a computer.

<img src=http://image.realityreel.com/2006/04/23/camel_eric_jeremy.jpg align=left>Fran & Barry then depart the scene and start talking tough. Barry growls, "We're beyond the point of being the congenial grandparents that we were in the first few rounds..." Fran adds, "We are going to go for it. We're not backing down..." This new warrior motif parlayed in the context of not sharing flight information at an airport! An airport stuffed with airline employees and travel clerks who want nothing more than to spill their informational guts so someone can buy a ticket. Really all Fran & Barry accomplished was forcing the "Frat Boys" to step ahead about 10 feet and ask a ticket agent the same question.

And, naturally, all four teams that made the first 9:00AM bus out of Rio, Greece, are all on the same flight out of Athens and land beside each other in Muscat, Oman. Whatever deviltry Fran & Barry thought they had spun by playing dumb with Eric & Jeremy apparently didn't work out so well. The fact that Fran & Barry finally squeaked into first place at the Pit Stop had so much more to do with reading a map cooly and carefully while driving on through to Sur and then later to Jabreen Castle — and others not doing that so well — than with not telling Eric & Jeremy a flight number in Athens.