And Then? (REDUX)

3.2.2016 (first published this week 2005)

Everyone says how much they hate Southwest Airlines: The long lines; the cattle-call free-for-all for seats; the unwashed masses. These are but a few of the things that make people hate it. I got no problem with SWA. They have planes that can go nonstop from the West Coast to Chicago. If ya book early enough, the flight is dirt cheap. The free flights come quickly, and they give you free drink tickets with every free flight. What's not to like.

People still say they hate it, though. I guess they hate it but fly it anyway, because for my annual trip to Spring Training baseball in Arizona I had to fly America West Airlines cuz all the cheap seats on SWA were gone and I was not gonna pay $1000 to fry OAK to PHX.

Oh and Am. West was SUCH a step up. Wow. It had, um ... unbelievable advantages over SW. Uh ... oh yeh! They had seat assignments! I got 12C (aisle) and my wife got 12B (middle). Fantastic! Only thing is we had different boarding grooooops. Stupid! And they boarded folks from all over the plane at the same time. Not first seats first, last last, last first, or whatever. Nope. I mean jeez. They might well have had Southwest's so-called "open seating."

And the class of people were such a welcome change from the mangy fucks from the budget airline. Some of these people had t-shirts without big johnson's or Cabo Wabo logos on them. Upper-upper crust, I'm tellin' ya. And the kicker - the thing that smacked me and said, "this here's some sophisticated folks," is the comments made by a beautiful couple of people making their way to row 16 or something. Passing me while looking for bin space for their luggage, the lady turned to the man trailing her and said, "Wow. Somebody actually put a BACKPACK in the overhead bin." To which the man said, "Huh. Sure looks that way."

I put the fucking backpack up there. I didn't see the sign that said, NO BACKPACKS. HERMES, COACH OR BETTER LUGGAGE ONLY. I suggested aloud to the people that they might charter their next flight so as not to be burdened with people putting backpacks in the place to put backpacks. The man opened his mouth to say something and I vomited on him. I excused myself and said I have a condition called Tarmac Airsickness and offered him my handkerchief. He declined.


OH! And the beers cost five bucks! SWA's beers are only four!


Tonight - House of Shields
  

bye-ee!
whrr ... clik!