An open letter to an airport; you know who you are.
I can forgive the TSA’s attempt to rape me. I hope you enjoyed it, you damn perverts.
I can forgive the airline that canceled my flight in anticipation of weather rather than because of it. I can forgive canceling my flight a day before the weather that didn’t happen. I can forgive not contacting me when I could easily have made adjustments in advance. I can forgive causing me to leaving my comfortable home many hours in advance for the privilege of watching my life, like sands through an hourglass, pour out on the concourse’s shitty tiled floor. I can forgive seats ideally sized for 8 year old female gymnasts, half ounce packets of pretzels, and generally turning the magic of flight from a golden adventure into a Kafkaesque nightmare.
However, there is no forgiveness in my heart for the airport lounge. Charging stranded innocents $11 for the booze they desperately need to keep from committing mayhem upon a vast system of integrated failure is simply wrong. It’s wrong written in neon on the face of humanity. It’s shitty on a galactic scale. Eleven bucks for a single mediocre drink is a sin against nature, an abomination before God, and a violation of civilizing norms. The sooner divine retribution sweeps their poisonous fangs from the neck of society the better. I don’t hope they die in a fire. I fervently dream of it. When it happens I will dance on their grave and sing songs about it. I’ll pay good money for an obelisk and erect it at their corporate front door. I’ll carve “Fuck them” on it’s base and hire street urchins to urinate hourly on their fiscal bottom line while commissioning an opera to commemorate how truly repulsive I found my tab.
Trust me on this, nothing good comes from being assholes. It’s good to make a profit, it’s evil to bleed a prisoner. I don’t know what will be the agent of karmic correction but I’m hoping it’s ugly and spectacular; possibly involving venereal disease, brimstone, and radioactive tapeworms.
As always, thanks for listening.
A.C.
You’ll never really, really appreciate how horrible US airline service is until you do a lot of flying all over the world. Nobody beats US (especially United) for hiring people who once worked for state DMV’s. That and they’ve got the worlds fattest stews. Remember when stews didn’t look like a bunch of walmart shoppers?
For great clubs try any Asian club. The booze, food and showers are all free. JAL even has this neat beer pouring machine that tilts the glass when it fills and then puts it upright for that perfect amount of head.
It just disgusts me that the US is becoming just a real shithole.
I wonder…we’re allowed liquids in containers 3 (or is it 3.5?) oz. or less, and as many toiletry items as will fit in a quart Ziploc bag, You can buy empty travel-sized bottles cheap in most drugstores (although better quality ones might be found online) that thrifty travelers can fill up with their regular-sized containers at home. As a female, I usually have several in my carry-on, and after my last trip to a Dec. conference, I’m seriously considering forgoing a few toiletries and replacing them with a little bottle or two of something a little more…spirited. I already travel with an empty water bottle I take through security and refill at the water fountain on the other side to avoid insanely overpriced non-alcoholic beverages.
In the “good old days” I flew with a fifth of whiskey in my pocket. As far as I’m concerned the only person who needs to be sober is the pilot.
You’re allowed a quart ziploc. As the excruciatingly wasted girl sitting next to me heading to Vegas informed me, you can fit ten liquor miniatures in said ziploc. Definitely took advantage of this fact on the way back.
Good to know – I shall most definitely be tucking a fortifying drink or two in my ziploc bag the next time I have to travel to a conference! Flying just got a whole lot better.
Well, that was rather mild. What we want is how you REALLY feel.
Happy bunnies and smiley faces.
I read your diatribe out loud to someone while using great theatrical flair. The cadence was perfect for ramping up to a foaming-at-the-mouth screaming rant. We laughed our butts off. I think the neighbors are calling 911. Gotta go. Thanks!