Bitch, you look wonderful tonight…
February 8, 2013
What? It’s the Eric Clapton song.
Are you sure it doesn’t say “bitch”…?
Well, that’s not the version I know.
Anyway, whatevs… I have im-po-tent things to talk about.
First of all, it had been almost 60 days – 60 days!!! – since I had allowed a giant, winged, beer can in the sky, that we like to call a big ol’ jet airliner, carry me too far away. It was a wonderful 60 days. Refreshing. If only I could have been without cell phones or computers too. Nirvana! Still… It was like being on one of those Gwyneth Paltrow bowel cleanses, where you only consume some kind of a lemonade with maple syrup, cayenne pepper and sea salt or something and all the toxins leave your body.
Sorry, Gwynie – I don’t actually know anything about this. But it looks yummy…
But just when I was almost free of all the toxins and I hadn’t been locked up, breathing-in the spoogie air generated by hundred of coughing and sneezing fellow carbon based units, I had to go visit my old friends, the King and Queen…
So, I head for l’aeroporto… (I’m learning Italian.) I have my trusty boarding pass in-hand from my friends at Delta, my favorite airline – not, and it says “Boarding Zone 3”. Now that doesn’t sound too bad. First Class must be Zone 1 and all the people with the precious metals flying rewards (gold, platinum, kryptonite, etc.) must be Zone 2… Right? Not a chance. You see, now-a-days there’s first class, then Sky Priority, then there’s the precious metals, then there’s women, children, the military, Fleetwood Mac featuring the USC marching band playing Tusk! …and then…THEN they call Zone 1. I’m like what??? Then after about 100 Zone 1 people, then they call Zone 2. Holy crap! So, about half-way through Zone 2, they announce to everyone that there is no more overhead bin space and that they have to check our carry-ons.
Really? You see, because they (the geniuses at Delta) charge you for every damn thing that you try to do, most people stopped checking bags. This causes the overhead bins to fill up quickly and it creates more work and inconveniences for everyone. This didn’t affect me but, next to me was a guy who had paid to check a bag and now he couldn’t take his carry-on with him. I’d be pissed. He was pissed. I think if you check a bag, you should have priority boarding so that you can store your carry-on. But that would mean that someone at Delta would have to give some thought to something other than how to squeeze another $5 out of every traveler. Anyway, now this poor bastard who paid to check a bag, can’t use the overhead because others, who were too cheap to check bags, used them all up. Brilliant!
So, more time goes by… Then, when there’s just me and a few homeless people, warming our hands over a burning trash can, and they finally call Zone 3. Woo hoo!
Garson!
I get to my seat (30D) and here comes another guy also with seat assignment 30D. He says, “hey…I think you’re in my seat.” I say, “I don’t think so.” Sure enough, we’ve both been assigned the same seat.
So I flag down the flight attendant… “Garson! Excuse me – I requested a hot chick to sit on my lap during this flight and instead you guys sent me this guy!”
She says to me, “Garson means boy.” Yes – just like on Pulp Fiction.
Anyway, she takes my boarding pass, hands me a Desani and asks my last name.
I take the Desani, ask, “is this Vodka?” And follow up with, “What’s your last name?”
She assures me that we could both use some vodka but Desani is just “purified water”.
I prefer natural spring water, myself. Spring Water has some chance of having come from a spring somewhere. Desani is purified water. I’m pretty sure that means it came from the tap at a near-by Coca-Cola factory and they just ran it through some filters – maybe.
But back to my story…
I say, “Purified Water? I’m going to need some Grey Goose here – pronto. How else am I going to take my Lemon-Lime Airborne so that I can try to live through this flight, in this virus infested sardine can you call an airplane?”
Just then, she gives me a look. You know the look.
It was a look that said, “I want to party with this guy.”
I squinted my eyes just a bit, raised my eyebrows and nodded slightly to the left.
That’s the international symbol for, “even if I were attracted to women of your race, I have a strict rule about flight attendants. If your ass can’t fit down the center aisle without bouncing off every other seat, it’s probably a little too big for my taste. – not that there’s anything wrong with that.”
We understood each other. She said, “thank you, Mr. Kobain”…and left with the guy who had my same seat number. I never saw either one of them ever again. My guess is that they ended up at some hotel/motel, Holiday Inn. After all, smoking is not permitted on any Delta flight. What?
BTW, the entire time that we were talking, the guy sitting in Seat 29C was staring at her giant ass and going, “Mmmm… Mmmgh!”…and licking his lips. See. There’s someone for everyone. I’m just not for everyone.
So, what have we learned? 1) It’s not just US Air hiring flight attendants who don’t fit down the center aisle anymore. Delta is an equal opportunity employer. 2) Desani is not vodka, it may not even be water. Drink responsibly!
Cowboy
Just about the time things are settling down, here comes The Cowboy. Not only is this guy wearing a cowboy hat, he’s carrying a saddle. WTF, dude… That’s your carry-on? Wait a minute, I thought there was no more room for carry-ons???
Well, here’s the annoying thing about cowboys. Hot chicks love cowboys. If there’s a cowboy around, you and I are suddenly George Costanza. Well of course, he’s sitting right behind me. You can’t wear a cowboy hat in an airline seat and horse saddles don’t fit under the seat in-front of you, so we have to get everyone in the rear half of the plane involved in helping the cowboy with his carry-on horse saddle.
I decided I’d better set some ground rules with this cowboy, so, when he wasn’t looking, I pinched his ass and yelled, “Howdy Partner!” All the flight attendant were like, “wow… why didn’t we think of that?” But “in the end”..get it? “In the end”… Cowboy knew not to mess with me.
But then, some random hot chick shows up… So I say, “Yes – I ordered one of those!” But no! Guess where is she sitting? Next to the cowboy – of course. Well, normally, when a hot chick sits next to you on a plane, you just say “hello”, exchange a few pleasantries and then hope she falls asleep so that you can check her out more closely. But not when there’s a cowboy involved! Especially one with a horse saddle near-by. Holy crap! They started talking about horses, and this… and that… and the other thing. Didn’t shut the hell up the entire trip. And every once in a while, when she asked him something and he need time to dream up a good answer, he would say, “oh my God” <pause> “oh… my… God!” Was he like a Valley Girl Cowboy? Oh my God… Shut the hell up. Whatever happened to loud noisy airplanes?
“Hey Cowboy… Are you a good shot? Shoot me now.”
Flyin’, Flyin’, Flyin’…
So we’re finally in the air. The airplane noise is muffling the cowboy speak just a bit, and I look over the seat in front of me and I see the top of some guy’s head. You know that hair style that many men sport where by, they are a little bald on top and they have a little hair on the sides? Well, imagine a really bad version of that. He’s not completely bald on top. He would be if maybe he groomed it a little. Instead it’s just this strange patch of fuzz and it’s in circled layers, each getting thicker and oldly shaped, as if he’d been wearing a baseball cap.
Suddenly, he starts scratching his head. Not just a little. He’s scratching all around, then flipping his hand over his head as if to knock off whatever he just scratched off! And, sure enough, there are little particle floating above his head. What the hell is that?
Are these little scalp particles? It looks like an anti-Monkey Butt powder fluff!
But it’s not. I think it’s little pieces of this guy’s head. Hovering and then dissipating into the air. The air that I didn’t want to breathe in the first place. And now, there may be microscopic scalp particles in it. WTF?
I’m looking around for a different seat. NSL (no such luck) – every seat is full. Oh, except for the one in-between the cowboy and the hot chick. Hmmm… Thought about it for a second.
Just then a flight attendant shows up, “can I get you anything to drink, Sir?”
I’m like, “Fuck no! Not unless you have a lid for that glass. You want me to drink a Sprite? It’s going to end up with scalp particles in it from Monkey Butthead over here.” Who, of course, is still scratching his head. At this point, he’s really digging in and his little scalp-dust cloud looks a bit like a smoldering volcano!
The flight attendant looks at him, makes a yuck! face. Looks at me like, “sucks to be you” – then looks at the next passenger and asks, “can I get you anything to drink?”
I’m like, “Hey… do you have a spray bottle? Maybe we can wet it to keep the dust down!”
No one is paying attention to me, except for this one guy.
I’m guessing he was a Federal Air Marshal.
So I decided to change my strategy and I started redirecting the air conditioning vents. Sure enough, I was able to create a little wind stream which blew over the guy in front of me and carried his scalp dust towards the cowboy and away from me. Whew!
Well, I made it… But you know, I once took a train from Boston to Florida because I thought my head was going to explode if I got back into an airplane. After this trip, there was no way in hell that I am getting back into an airplane any time soon. So, if you don’t hear from me for a few weeks, it’s probably because I decided to walk home from Atlanta.
How the hell am I going to get to Europe and Napa and Todos Santos… ugh!
Non-Redhead of the Week
No, Barnsley… I think I’m done for the day.
OK, fine. Barnsley is right. If we don’t do this, we’re going to get back-logged.
Fortunately, the research department has flooded me with non-redhead choices.
This week, I’m going with Erika M. Anderson who performs as EMA.
I think I’m picking Erika, by the way, because she reminds me of every girl I “hung out with” in between high school and college. She brings me back to a time of eating at Arby’s every night and listening to the Talking Heads, before everyone else listened to them.
OK, so… She’s also our musical guest today. But I must warn you, the song I’ve chosen may not be the best representation of her voice and/or musical talents. But I love the raw beginnings of this song. It’s stuff like this that makes for a great non-redhead. Enjoy.
This is Marked by EMA…
…oh, and try to ignore the freaky, non-gender specific, Addicted to Love, background person.
So, do we love her or what???
There! You happy now, Barnsley? Barnsley?
Hmmm… He better be out looking for that vodka.
Well, that’s it for today. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading today’s post.
Gotta run. Love yas!
– Arch
Delta Airlines is the worst…
March 3, 2012
This post was originally to be titled… “February was so long that it lasted into March”
Then I was going to blame leap year.
But I have important things to complain about: Delta Airlines.
The cool thing about complaining online these days is that all the big airlines, like Delta, are undoubtedly using something like Reputation.com, which attempts monitor the company’s “online reputation”. This means that shortly after my post hits the airwaves, someone at Delta will probably be reading it.
Hello Delta Person. I challenge you to create a better airline experience.
It’s funny. Years ago, I had a friend who was an airline pilot and it was always his dream to fly for Delta. Way back then, Delta commanded that kind of respect. Supposedly, they even had a secret policy of only ever interviewing people once. If you interviewed with them and they didn’t hire you, they never asked you to interview again. They were the hot shots of the ski. Today, I think they are the Yugo of airlines…
Yu Know (rhymes with Yugo), I never actually rode in a Yugo but I know that it was cheap (MSRP: $3990) and I have to imagine that every Yugo owner wished they had spent a little more on something different. Beyond that, I bet it was uncomfortable and, at any given moment, its passengers were deciding whether this trip was worth it or if it was better to just hang themselves. It was just like flying on Delta.
I know Delta Person is probably thinking, this isn’t a fair comparison. For starters, you can’t have a flight attendant in a Yugo. Maybe not, but you can put one on a Yugo…
I’m really diggin’ those boots, baby…
I think Delta and I are like a couple who went through a bad divorce. Once upon a time, I loved Delta. I was a SkyMiles Double-Secret Probation Kryptonite Level Member. Then came the time that I was headed to Steamboat Springs through Atlanta in First Class. There I was at the Delta Crown Room and I couldn’t get internet access without paying a fee. Really? I guess the Crown Room Membership plus the First Class ticket “combo” wasn’t enough money for them to give me a little internet access.
Then, I board the very long flight from Atlanta to Steamboat Springs (aka Hayden, aka Yampa Valley Regional Airport) and First Class had unlimited Doritos and those damned Biscoff cookies for us to eat. That was it? I had just flown coach on Continental from Houston to Santa Ana and had a cheeseburger… for free. Not here. This is Delta where we nickle and Dime Every Last Traveler Aboard.
Seat Assignments
These days, when you try to book a Delta flight on the average travel site, you usually can’t get a seat assignment. This is their new strategy for trying to get you to buy a premium seat and pay an extra $25 or more. So you book a flight and inadvertently get assigned either no seat or a middle seat. When you look at the seat map, only middle seats are available, unless you want to pay extra. I think this makes for a deceptive business practice, since at this time, you’ve already purchased the ticket based on the originally shown price, which you had probably compared to other airlines.
Bags
Then comes the luggage thing. You want to check a bag? You guessed it. That cost more money. But actually, it cost a lot more than you think. In my opinion, when you pay to check luggage, the only thing you gain is not having to deal with your luggage, but you still have to deal with everyone else’s.
You see, because they are charging passengers to check bags, more people than ever attempt to carry their bags onto the airplane. So here’s what happens… YOU pay and check one bag, then carry-on something essential like your laptop bag. Most other travelers, however, were too cheap to check a bag, so when you board the plane all the overhead compartments are full. The flight attendant gets on the overhead paging system and says, “if you are carrying a small item, like a laptop bag, please put it under the seat in front of you”.
So now, you paid to check a bag, everyone else took the overhead spaces and you can’t stretch out your legs because that’s where your laptop bag goes. How is this fair? I think if I checked a bag, I should get priority access to the overhead space. Hell, instead of paying $25 for checking a bag, I’d pay $30 for guaranteed overhead space, so I can be comfortable and not have to deal with baggage claim and the potential for lost bags.
I think Air Tran was doing this. For about $40 you got to check a bag, a better seat with extra leg room, and priority boarding, which assured you space in the overhead compartment. Brilliant!
It doesn’t stop there..
You see, I don’t want an aisle seat just to be an airline seat snob. I actually have somewhat of a bad knee that acts up every now and then, and on long flights I need to get up and walk around a little bit. So, as a courtesy to the other passengers in my row, I’d rather sit in an aisle seat. This way I don’t have to bother them if my knee starts acting up.
But here’s my scenario… I pay Delta for my ticket, then I pay Delta to transport a bag for me to the place where the airplane was going anyway! Now I’m having to sit in a cramped seat with no leg room because all the other cheap bastards on the plane took all of the overhead space. So, I fall asleep in my seat, hoping to make this trip seem as short as possible but, because of the way I am having to sit, my bad knee ends up slightly in the aisle. Remember, I can’t stretch my leg. That’s where my laptop bag is. Well, sure enough, along comes a flight attendant pushing a drink cart and crashes it into my bad knee.
Now my knee hurts way more than usual and the goofy-assed flight attendant, who just obviously doesn’t care, says, “oh… sorry” and thinks she can make up for this with an extra dose of Biscoff cookies.
Guessing that beating a flight attendant over the head with your laptop bag is highly frowned upon by the authorities, I have to just sit there rubbing my knee and only imagining what she might look like roasting over an open fire, while trying to figure out how to get back to sleep without having my knee wander into the aisle again. Fortunately, I’d packed some ibuprophen to go with my microscopic bag of pretzels and, of course, those damned Biscoff cookies.
In conclusion…
Growing up in South Florida, there was a time when Delta Airlines was the premiere airline that serviced us. And since it was their main hub, the joke was that if you died in South Florida, you would have to change planes in Atlanta on your way to hell. This is no longer the case. You no longer have to wait, as Delta Airline has worked tirelessly to bring hell right to you, the minute you book a flight with them.
E’nuff said.
Touch Me, Baby… Tainted Love
Driving home the other night, listening to First Wave on XM Radio, after Delta delivered me to my destination, like Steve Austin – a man barely alive, I heard a song that I hand’t heard in a long time and, quite honestly, I’d forgotten what a great song this was. They played the long version of Soft Cell’s Tainted Love / Where did our love go? combo. It’s actually 9 minutes long but it’s excellent.
Now, I usually try to feature live performances as the musical guest, but the sound quality on the studio version is so much better. The research department scoured through a number of the You Tube videos out there and decided that if we were going to play Soft Cell, we’re going to link two videos.
So this is for you, Delta Airlines… Where did our love go?
And if you want to see them in a live performance, enjoy this one…
Well, I think that’s all I have for today.
Except for…
Happy Birthday, Stone-Z!
See you in two weeks.
Safe Travels (to everyone – stay off Delta.)
– Arch
Archie Kobain 