Cargo Envy

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

See how she leanes her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

—Romeo and Juliet

It never fails; show a sexy woman holding some object close to her mouth, breasts, crotch, or any other similarly suggestive area (or even just touching her), and somebody will say "Boy, I wish I were that (object)." Even if she's eating an apple.

Similar to Man, I Feel Like a Woman - only there the guy doesn't just want to be the cargo, he wants to be the entire package.

Obviously related to Cargo Ship.

No real life examples, please; we'd be here all day.

Examples of Cargo Envy include:


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Anime and Manga

  • Several times throughout To LOVE-Ru, there were comments on desperate guys wanting to become an article of clothing on Lala's body. At one point, Yuuki Rito (through a bizarre set of circumstances) becomes Lala's personal robot Peke. One of Peke's main jobs is to materialize clothes for Lala which he (and in this case, Rito) must control, so in essence he actually accomplished the trope.
  • Mysterious Girlfriend X chapter 61 has Tsubaki become envious of a shirt he left with Urabe, as she decided to use it as pajamas.

Film

  • Wishmaster: "I'd sell my soul to be a pimple on her ass."
  • A review of A Life Less Ordinary included a picture of Cameron Diaz Bound and Gagged with the caption "Oh! To be that duct tape! Oh! To be that rope!"
  • The Pauly Shore comedy Bio-Dome shows him and a buddy going to a job interview. When asked what their ambitions in life are, one of the boys says: "To die and come back as a leotard," and the other one nods and starts breathing heavily.
  • In the re-boot of Friday the 13 th, Chewy wishes he could "die and come back as one of the little buttons on the ass pocket" of Bree's jean shorts.
  • At the end of Dead Heat, Doug says he'd like to come back as a girl's bicycle seat.
  • Jackie Mason's character in Caddyshack II, when told to "be the ball," responds with, "If I wanted to be a piece of sports equipment, I'd be a women's bicycle seat!"
  • The Romeo And Juliet example is parodied in Tromeo and Juliet: Tromeo says those same lines while Juliet's gloved hands are touching her other cheeks.
  • In Vanilla Sky Tom Cruise's character says he wants to be the mole on his girlfriend's breast.
  • In With Honors, Moira Kelly calls Brendan Fraser's character into the bathroom to talk to him while she is in the shower and shaving her legs (we can partly see her through the shower curtain). Though his back is turned he can't resist checking her out in the mirror, and after leaving he remarks "Never wanted to be a razor so bad in my life."

Literature

  • An anthology of Domino Lady short stories had her team up with Airboy. At the end, she leaves a lipstick mark on Birdy and Airboy remarks that for the first time, he's actually envious of his plane.
  • It seems to have been taken down now, but there used to be a poem on deviantART expressing envy of David Bowie's microphone stand.
  • The Tennyson poem The Miller's Daughter has the poet desiring to be her earring, corset, and necklace, all so that he could be close to her.
  • In Ovid's Amores, he expresses a strong desire to be the ring on his mistresses finger.
  • Likewise, in many of the poems of Catullus, he desires to be this or that belonging to his mistress, Lesbia. Most famously, he wants to be her passer or pet "sparrow." Though some believe it may not really be a sparrow.
  • Alexander Pushkin has a short poem dedicated to a tobacco sniffing girl. In the end, he states he wishes to be that tobacco, for her to spill a bit over herself.

Live-Action TV

  • In Just Shoot Me, Dennis and Kevin are watching Maya's new assistant Amy drink coffee. Dennis wishes he were the coffee mug, so that she would have her lips all over him. Kevin, on the other hand, wishes he were the spoon, "so that she could pick me up by my ankles and dip me in steaming hot coffee."
  • In Robin Hood Guy of Gisborne watches Marian pet her horse, at which point the Sheriff asks him: "Not envious of a horse, are you?"
  • In Lizzie McGuire, Lizzie makes a remark like this regarding the helmet on Ethan Craft's head.
  • During New Directions' performance of "Toxic" on Glee: "I WANNA BE THAT HAT!" (the hat in question being held in front of Mr. Schu's crotch)
  • An episode of Saved by the Bell had a guy woo a girl with poetry, wishing to be her straw so that he could touch her lips. Screech sees the effectiveness and tries it on Lisa, "I wish I were the ketchup on your plate / So you could stick your french fries in my face!" Lisa crams her french fries in Screech's mouth and walks off in disgust.
  • Gender Flip: In an episode of Friends when Pheobe has spontaneously developed a crush on Monica and Ross's dad, and therefore finds all the decidedly ordinary things he does sexy: "What I wouldn't give to be that can of condensed milk!"
  • Community has Troy and Abed both attracted to a Hot Librarian, with Troy wishing he was her book so she could flip through him.

Meta

Music

I wish I was an apple
A-hangin' on a tree,
And every time my Cindy'd pass
She'd take a bite of me.

  • The song "Ticks": "You press your bottle to your lips, and I wish I was your beer".
  • "Jealous of your Cigarette" by Hawksley Workman

I'm jealous of your cigarette
And all the things you do with it
I'm jealous of your cigarette
And how you wanna suck on it
And not me

  • Sergio Mendes' song "Like a Lover" is full of this trope:

"How I envy a cup that knows your lips
Let it be me, my love
And a table that feels your fingertips
Let it be me, let me be your love."

  • "Bang on a Piano" by Jack McManus has "And that blanket wrapped around you, wish that was me."
  • "(I Wanna Be) Your Underwear" by Bryan Adams, inspired by the public reveal of a private phone call between Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.
  • Katherine Hinkson's "Irish Love Song" set to the Londonderry Air (better known as the tune to "Danny Boy.")

Would God I were the tender apple blossom
That floats and falls from off the twisted bough
To lie and faint within your silken bosom
Within your silken bosom as that does now.

All these common things surround you, and my heart has no defense.
Am I mad that I might envy things with neither thought nor sense?
Even though they never know it, yet your passing lends them grace;
I would trade and count it fortune, to be standing in their place.

  • Toni Braxton's Spanish guitar I wish that I was in your arms/ like that Spanish Guitar/and you could play me through the night until the dawn...
  • "Sugar, We're Going Down" by Fall Out Boy:

Oh don't mind me I'm watching you two from the closet
Wishing to be the friction in your jeans

  • "Gasoline" by Seether has one increasingly squicky example in each verse.

Theatre

See how she leanes her cheek upon her hand.
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek.

"O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!"

Web Comics

Web Original


Western Animation

  • In a sketch on Robot Chicken, a young man who's died and is going to be reincarnated has to spin a wheel to find out what he's going to be reincarnated as. One of the options is "Keira Knightley's panties". Guess which one he wants. Go on, guess.
  • American Dad: "Let's face it, if that wishing bowl really worked, it would belong to a centuries-old Incan driving a Ferrari on his way to his job as Jessica Alba's G-string."
  • Parodied in Family Guy by Chris

Chris: She's so pretty that if your Hacky Sack were my private parts, I'd let her do that to them.
Classmate: What? Kick them around?
Chris: ..Wait... ... ... ...yes.

    • Also, Peter in the Wonder Twins parody
  • Adventure Time had a complex version of this that started off as:

Jake: "You wish you were my butt."

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