DSafetyGuy Unleashes The Hounds

DSF has some aggravating travel notes he'd like to share...

This one goes out to a special sub-section of my best friends ever – airline travelers. This is not just a timely rant because with the holiday season upon us, airports will be overcrowded, not just with the usual buffoons, but also with the local news reporter looking for the travelers who have been put out by ill weather and get to camp out at the airport until their flight van leave, they get re-booked, or whatever. This is an all-purpose rant. (Besides, I get whatever is coming my way for traveling to a warm-weather destination on Christmas Eve. Perhaps I’ll report back on how many times and exactly how hard I punched myself in the face…)

Sometime recently, it became acceptable to rail on the airlines for pretty much everything they provide – the flights are too expense because fuel prices went up, there is no longer free food on the flights, it costs additional money to check a bag, and so on. And now, their uppance hath come.

First, why are the lines so long to check in at the airport? Can you not go online and check in prior to coming to the airport, thereby making things easier for yourself? Look, I know Al Gore made the internet so we’d have more effective ways of feeding our perversions and being able to email our brothers about them, but you can also actually do something productive with the intertubes, yes, even beyond bidding $32 for that piece of junk on eBay. You can check yourself in for your flight and print up a piece of paper that says, “hey, I can get on the plane without having to stand in another line, look around aimlessly, and ignore the attendant who calls me to the next available person or machine.” The future is upon us, and not just in Rapid City, South Dakota. Embrace it, fools.

And hey, if you have to pay to check that bag, extra or otherwise, don’t stand in some imaginary line when there are four kiosks available where you can pay for the bag. Help out your fellow man, even the one who loathes you.

Next, after you check your bag, don’t put your ID and boarding pass away and bury them wherever it is you hide them, be it a wallet, a purse, computer bag, or your ass. It is the thing you need to have handy at the next place you get to, namely, the start of the security line. You know, where that person in the blue or white dress shirt asks you for your boarding pass and ID? That guy you mock for being incompetent or inattentive because the line is not moving fast enough? He’s waiting for every knuckle-dragging mouth-breather who puts away the documents he is asked to present seven seconds before needing to present them. So help him out, what with the “being better than him” and all.

Off to security you go and when you get there what is the first thing you do? That’s right, harrumph and bitch and moan because the line is being held up by someone who forgets to take their jacket off… or leaves their belt on and the buckle’s a little too big and sets off the detector… or doesn’t realize that “you must take your shoes off and put them through the screener” means that you must take your shoes off and put them through the screener. Of course, then you get to pick up the bin you need for your loose items and put them through the x-ray machine. Then, in defiance of progress for humanity, you don’t actually push your items onto the conveyer belt, but choose to leave them for the person behind you to propel through. Courtesy, you live on in the hearts of all. You step toward the magnetometer (the big thing you walk through that either beeps or doesn’t, pending on the whims of an all-powerful pixie) and are told that you have to take your shoes off. Well done, sir. Well done. Somehow, you manage to take your shoes off and get through the magic hallway without any other issues. Next, you return to the far side of the x-ray area to collect your belongings, which you do without moving beyond the mouth of the conveyer tunnel, thereby preventing the poor bastard behind you from getting his items, moving out of the way, then gathering himself together. But, hey, you got your shoes back on. High five.

(As an aside, you have no idea how close you became to being left in a bloody heap on the outside of the security area. I forgot to take my Leatherman off my keychain and was debating hiding it in your back, tiny pocket knife blade-first. Of course, I realized I didn’t want to slip on the pool of blood you would invariably leave behind, so I held back.)

As you walk down the concourse, you think about needing some items for the plane, definitely a snack and maybe a magazine, because you’re “getting ripped off by the goddamn airlines for everything” and won’t be getting a meal you would complain about because it “tastes like the inside of a marathon runner’s New Balance dipped in vomit.” Of course, you have to subject yourself to the price-gouging of a bag of chips at the newsstand, prompting you to complain about how the owners should be paying you since they are having their way with you, sexually. However, you swallow this indignity and move on with your Sun Chips.

Off to the gate with you, where you do what anyone in their right mind does – camp out in front of the unmanned gate so you can attempt to bully your way into a better seat, including your preferred option of upgrading without giving up anything in exchange. Within 17 seconds of her arrival, you nearly berate the gate attendant to the point of tears because there are no other seats available on the completely sold-out flight and you will have to stay in your window seat in (the indignity of) the back third of the plane. You make a mental note to “never fly with this airline again” and move off to your next destination.

Ahhhh, there you are, camped out right where the line to board starts so as soon as first class travelers are summoned, you can hop right in line even though your boarding pass says, “zone 6.” But, hey, those dumb fucks who are in zones one through five who chose to use the restroom so they did not have to inconvenience other travelers by asking them to get up while on the plane get what they deserve for their kindness… the right to crawl over you while you and your oversized shoulder bag obstruct half of the walkway to get to the gate.

Eventually, “zone six” is summoned and you plow your way down the jetway, squeezing in that one last call on your Bluetooth, making certain everyone around you knows how important you are. Good job. Now they’ll give you respect.

And on the plane you are, jostling those other passengers who were so rude as to board prior to you. And who the fuck puts their bag in the compartment over your seat? I’ll tell you who, that person who won’t find their fucking bag when we land, that’s who.

And the plane hasn’t even taken off yet.

Can I strangle myself with one of those tiny-ass blankets?

Comments

[Tia]

Two words: Porter Airlines

No lineups, great takeoff over Toronto Harbour (Into Midway -- no O'Hare and no Pearson), free lunch (and booze) and you get your bags in the time it takes to p.

Unfortunately, it doesn't yet serve sunny locales. But it got us to see the folks in Chicago very nicely indeed.