is it just me?

Well, it's been a while since I posted here, but part of my excuse is that I was out of town last week on business. I was supposed to fly from Madison to Washington D.C. via Detroit. I arrive at the airport to see if one of the special seats that they only give out the day of the flight is available. The woman behind the counter dutifully checks her computer, and then reports there are no good seats. Whatever, I have a perfectly fine seat already. Then she asks me where I am going. When I tell her, she says "Oh, well it doesn't matter about the seats because you're going to miss your connection anyway." Now, if someone asked you about seats on the plane, don't you think you would mention that it was 2 hours late? So they transfer me to another airline, which was nice of them. I check in at the new place, and the guy says "You have seat 4A and 15C". Excellent. Those are good solid seats. Most importantly, neither of them is a middle seat. Then he realizes he's made a mistake, and he needs to reissue my passes. This takes a while. At the end he reports "Oh, well, now those other seats aren't available, so on your second flight you'll be in seat 23C." I immediately feel that my karma is bad, and know this is going to be a terrible trip. So, first class is the penthouse suite. 15C is a good, solid non-smoking king. 23E is a custodial closet in the basement. It's in the middle, which is bad. It's also in the back, which is bad because they put everyone who paid a cheap price for their ticket in the back. (I have no evidence on this, but how else can you explain making someone with three kids sit in row 30? And it happens all the time. Start paying attention. You will see that the back of the plane is an evil place.)

Now, before I get to the story of the flight in 23E, I have to tell a story about the bar where I had dinner in the Chicago airport. It was a standard airport bar, they served food. I enjoy having a beer before flying because it helps me sleep through the flight. There was a very unfriendly older hungarian bartender named Regina working at this place. I sit down, order a beer, she asks for my i.d. A normal enough interaction. A young woman comes and sits down, orders a Diet Coke, and she asks for her i.d. She explains that you need to be 21 to sit at the bar. Good enough. A guy old enough to be my dad sits down, doesn't order anything, and she asks for his i.d. Good lord. She is also generally surly and not very efficient, but she is keeping us entertained. We're kind of laughing about it, and she points at a sign that says "We I.D. 100%." This is not a good policy. I mean, really. The vast majority of people in bars in airports are light years away from being 21. Finally a guy old enough to be my grandfather comes over to the bar to get his wife a glass of wine. Regina needs to see her i.d. The guy says "You need i.d. from my wife who's 78?" Regina points at the sign. The guy leaves. No i.d., no wine. So, I know that airport bars probably aren't flooded with qualified applicants, but don't you think you could hire someone who has enough judgement that you don't need to make them i.d. a 78 year old? Work with me people.

So, I am getting on my flight. Two things instill fear in me when flying: fat people and babies. As I head to seat 23E, I get a glimpse of the gentleman in seat 23D. He's big and fat. He's so fat he can't put the armrest down. If you're so fat you can't put the armrest down (I need that slim piece of plastic and metal to protect my middle seat kingdom from invaders) you should have to buy two seats. My friend who watches Airline says on Southwest you do. Yay for Southwest. I make some joke about my seat and my big furry friend says "They should really have more options than just coach and first class." Yes, I thought. You should be able to pay extra to not have to sit in a middle seat next to a fat guy. I would definitely do it. Especially when traveling on business. So, we pull out of the gate, but then we sit on the tarmac for nearly an hour. It is about a billion degrees on the plane, and fat people sweat a lot. It was awful. Then this weird guy on the other side of me starts talking. He's in his fifties, some sort of retired military who is originally from Dallas but lives in DC. He really wants me to know he has a girlfriend. I really want him to know that I don't need to know anything about him. He keeps telling me he needs to call his girlfriend, that his girlfriend is coming to pick him up, blah blah blah. I start to wonder which sins I am being punished for, and contemplate whether this is actually worse than a sharp stick in the eye. not just in that casual off-handed "Better than a sharp stick in the eye!" kind of way, but in a real make a list of pros and cons to come to a good decision kind of way.

Since I am ranting about airlines, I would also like to say that I am really tired of being taken advantage of by people traveling with kids. Often I am traveling by myself, and if you are just one, young, single person you are kind of screwed. On a recent vacation I was traveling alone to meet family, and had just settled in to my lovely bulkhead window seat. This family gets on board. There is a husband, wife and one small child. The husband says to me "my wife and I weren't seated together, but I have the window seat on that side. Would you mind switching?" No problem. He looks at his boarding passes and says "it's seat 5B". That's not the window. Then he looks at me with fake shock and says "Oh, I guess we have two middles. Do you mind? I mean, she can sit here with our son if you don't want to move." Now I have two choices: 1) be a total asshole and say no, and then suffer the glare of them through the whole flight or 2) be punished for their lack of foresight in booking seats together, and sit in the middle. I take option 2, but this is not the first time. In fact, it happens all the time. So to all you people who want to travel with kids: buy seats for your kids if they are big enough to stand up, and book seats together. Assholes.

One more story about airlines. On my way home I was on a small commuter flight form my howetown to Detroit. Again it was hot on the plane, and the plane seriously loooked like it was from world war II. I understand that the job of stewardess on these flights is the equivalent of seat 23E, but hey: you have to earn your stripes. A woman gets on my flight with two kids in tow, both who are quite small and the older of who has Down's syndrome. The poor mom is struggling because neither child is really capable of getting on the plane by themselves. So she says to the stewardess "Is it okay if I sit in this empty row, rather than in the back of the plane?" The stewardess is very mean, and says "I am really not sure about seating, so go to the back of the plane." Despite my previous paragraph, I do think it's okay to be accommodating to kids. Don't do it in a way that makes me sacrifice a good seat for your shitty castoffs, but this plane is not even close to full, and it's tiny so the various seats don't matter as much. And there are no middle seats. So the mom says "Well, it would really be better up here, because sitting in the back makes him throw up." I think this is a compelling argument, and I am sure the people that are sitting in front of this woman do too. The stewardess says "Well, in these small planes it doesn't matter. Go sit in the back." Honestly, it was as mean as I have ever seen a stewardess, and I have seen some mean ass flight attendants. So then the lady in front of me tells the attendant that she cant' move her little air blower. The attendant says "Well, don't worry about it because the air's not on." The lady says she realizes the air isn't on, but she can't even move it. The attendant argues for a minute more, and then deigns herself to try to move it. With a considerable amount of effort gets the thing to move. She looks at the lady as if to say "See that, dumbass?", rolls her eyes and walks away. Now, if this is how you feel about customer service, I have one piece of advice for you: do not become a flight attendant. What was she thinking? That it was all about free trips to Paris? Anyone who flies knows that is a hard job, and most of us know it is one we don't want. Seriously. It is really all about customer service, and you should not be a flight attendant if you hate customers. A few other professions to stay away from: waitressing, telemarketing, and sales. I know I would suck at all of those things because I am not good at being nice to stupid people. But I think the number one thing on the job description for stewardesses is Be nice to stupid people. Number 2 might be Be very good at opening cans without chipping a nail.

Now, this post has gone on long enough, but there are just a couple more things. The first is that I saw a guy in the Madison airport wearing a camouflage t-shirt that says "Can you see me now?" Now THAT is funny. There was also a guy on my plane who had to be 90 years old wearing a shirt that said "I survived the Sky Scraper" which is apparently some amusement park ride somewhere in Wisconsin. This also cracked me up. Someone pointed out to me that this must be a pre-9/11 shirt, or else it was in poor taste. I still think it's funny. And it is extra funny that that is what he decided to wear while traveling. While waiting in the airport, I picked up a copy of USA Today Weekend magazine, a bastion of outstanding journalism. In the little q&a thing in the front they are talking about Matt Lauer's new show The Greatest American. Have you heard of this? Basically they list a whole mess of famous Americans, and try to decide who's the greatest. It includes obvious candidates such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Thomas Jefferson, along with more dubious inclusions like Madonna and Oprah. Now, if they vote Madonna the greatest american, I seriously have to move to Canada. So there's a quote from Matt Lauer that says something like "Obviously Abraham Lincoln and MLK were both great individuals, but this is about trying to decide who's more important. These are the things my friends and I talk about." Oh, right. I am really supposed to believe that you sit around drinking brandy discussing the merits of different Americans? And, are we really so obsessed with competition that one person has to be the greatest? We wouldn't want to proud of a long and diverse history filled with interesting people. No sir. This is America, and we need to know who's best.

Also in USA magazine q&a was someone who wrote it saying "I really like the band Coldplay. Do you know when their new album is coming out?" Right. Like someone who likes Coldplay would really write a letter to find that out. Don't you have the internet? I am sure that if I dug deep I would find out that whatever label produces coldplay also owns USA Today (as well as a tiny part of my soul) but I would think that the publicists could come up with something a little bit hipper than that to advertise the release of a record.

okay. i'm done.