Here’s a proposal for all the entrepreneurs out there looking to try a wacky new venture, who can come to the table with my non-refundable $2,000 finder’s fee and my usual case of Strongbow rider.
I’m in the process of arranging my third trip this winter from Minnesota (“The Land of 1,000,000 Retreating Testicles”) to a warm locale. In addition to the hourly seething jealousy calls I’m receiving from friends and colleagues, I’m once again put in the position of trying to coordinate how I’ll get to the airport on public transport without freezing to death, but then not having to fly all the way to Guam with a double-wide parka and having to drag it around in 90 degree heat for two weeks like a hobo.
It’s occurred to me that I must be the 857,274th person to face this conundrum since November. And what does a wide-spread conundrum mean? A cash cow for some opportunistic genius, that’s what.
Someone needs to open a coat check business at MSP. It’d be so simple and wildly popular. You set up a seasonal booth in the departures hall where people can drop off their coats as soon as they step in from the cold. At the end of the day the coat check person would haul all the coats down to a storage room by baggage claim, which would also conveniently serve as the coat pick-up point for people when they return from their trips. If you charge something like $2 a day for storage and take in as little as 100 coats each day, you’re in the black.
Additional revenue streams could be created by offering long term storage for people (I think the lockers at MSP have a 48 hour max time limit) and running a coat/hat/gloves/boots rental service for those unlucky people visiting us in February from places like Atlanta where if it gets below 40 degrees weather emergencies are declared, Blues Brothers-caliber 90-car pile-ups dot the highways and the National Guard is deployed to thwart looting at the Home Depot.
Buncha pasties.
Obviously, this venture would only be viable for about four months a year. So what would this genius entrepreneur do with his or her summer? I don’t know, how about watching syndicated TV and eating bonbons? They’ll be flush with funds from their genius venture, after all. Or maybe they could run a Dairy Queen. Whatever.
So am I a genius or what? Or has someone already tried this and gone bankrupt after six weeks? Eh, I’m a genius anyway.
[Photo credit: Draconiansleet]
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Genius Ideas | 11.02.2008 10:13 | 9 Comments
Good idea… I was going to suggest the storage lockers but they’re only good for 48 hours? Damn.
I think a lot of people though… if they park at the airport will leave their jacket in the car. If you’re like me, I wear a light jacket – freeze my ass off at the light rail for a short but and then put it in my case.
11.02.2008 10:54
Brilliant! I could have used that so many times. I went to Nicaragua in February once. It was -5 when I left here and 95 when I arrived there. I had a down parka and had to haul it all over the overheated landscape for the next three weeks.
11.02.2008 18:08
The Smarte Carte people should do this. They’re local. Give them a ring so they know where to send your check.
It should be called Coate Checke.
11.02.2008 23:27
Aaron – Yeah man, when I went to San Fran a couple weeks ago, it was that Tuesday before the insanely cold Wednesday, except the weather for Insanely Cold Wednesday arrived just as I was walking out of my building to LRT. I was wearing a fleece and a light jacket and it was like 2 degrees. Walked five blocks and missed the train by 10 seconds. Cowered under one of those heat lamps for eight minutes. So, maybe there is a god after all.
Joanna – I bet you were the talk of the town in Nicaragua. They’d probably never seen a parka before. Did little kids cry when you came down the street?
Ed – I see you have marketing experience. I feel like a European just looking at the name. Makes me wanna get rid of my coat and chain-smoke 47 cigarettes.
12.02.2008 8:56
Excellent idea. There’s nothing more annoying than having to leave room in your carry-on for a 3/4-length Michael Kors, only to have the airline counter dude tell you it’s now oversized and you now have to–gasp!–check your bag.
Even though I’ve found that not checking it and just carrying the coat comes in handy in perpetually freezing-cold jet cabins, walking off the plane and into sunny Caribbean humidity lugging what then feels like a wooly dead animal is simply no picnic.
12.02.2008 12:55
This is a great idea. I just had to lug my coat all around Florida. On the day I returned, there was an 80 degree temperature differential!
12.02.2008 18:25
We should all email the folks at MSP (publicaffairs@mspmac.org) and request this!
–Steve
13.02.2008 11:22
It sounds like I made the right choice by going to Romania twice this winter instead of somewhere warm. It’s much easier to just wear the coat than to carry it around.
20.02.2008 6:32
It has been possible to check your coat for many years. The TravelEx America Airport Business Center is in the ticketing lobby, between exit doors 5 and 6. They charge $2 a day for holding your coat, plus they have a lot of other business related services. Telephone 612-726-5184. They really should advertise this more. I leave for Texas tomorrow and I’ll leave my ankle-length down coat until I come back to the frozen north.
23.01.2009 10:17
