Who Loves the Airlines?

I just spent 4 hours traveling 1 1/2 miles trying to get to the airport. I sat and sat as snow poured down on my sad little orange rental car, and wondered when my car would officially run out of gas. I watched the time go by. One hour, two hours, as I missed my flight, and then three and four hours as I almost missed my next flight. I thought about how I might die alone in that little car at the point of the mountain with no food and water and I realized something earth-shattering. Are you ready? Everyone dies alone, not just people in snowstorms in orange cars. It's that one trip you can't take a companion on.

Why is this relevant? It's not. At all. It might be the dumbest thing ever written, but my point is this: I had a LOT of time to think, and sadly I donn't think very smart things.

Travel is getting tedious. I zoomed in to the rental car return, ran to the ticket agent to get my ticket, and finally ran through security with 20 minutes to go. Every obstacle that could be thrown in path to keep me from my destination was indeed thrown. With 10 minutes to go I ran up to the gate breathless and the door was shut. I threw myself on the ground in front of the door, "Please, please open the door for me," I cried to the gate agent. She looked at me with pity and coughed, pointing to the board behind her head. "We're delayed 45 minutes." "Oh."

And so goes the cruel game that airlines play with us as they smile condescendingly behind their little desks and turn us away. So here I sit waiting on my second delay for them to tell me that no flight will actually go out tonight at all. Why? Because I'm actually in the airport and they have all the power, so why not cancel? More than any other organization in these United States, the airlines OWN us.

They can give us the worst service and we have to come back. They can charge us to bring more than one bag on now. They can charge us when we miss a flight due to weather, but not reciprocate and give us a hotel or even an "I'm sorry" when they cancel a flight. There is zero accountability, and I know I sound bitter, and that's because I am. Just a little...no, a lot. As I would be told to say in Alanon, "I am angry at the airlines." Recognition my friends.

Looking forward to three more flights in the next week, I groan inside. But one day I will have my revenge. I don't know what that will be, but it will happen. It will definitely happen.

On a more interesting travel note, I saw today that Richard Branson has "his people" working on a way to make flights from LA to Australia 30 minutes long. It's tied to space travel technology. How great would THAT be?? If only it could happen NOW. Then everyone in our family could quit complaining and we could see our parents every weekend. I'm sure it will be totally cheap.

(Now I have an hour to kill, so I'm going to go talk to my fellow travelers and try to incite an uprising. Kidding, I'm going to be POSITIVE and go make some friends. Someone out there's gotta love Big Booty!)