A week or so ago, I traveled by plane to Texas from my home in Central Pennsylvania. Thinking I'd save a little money for my employer, I caught the plane from Baltimore rather than Harrisburg or Philadelphia. Ah, silly, silly man.
Apparently sometime in early 2005, I did not pay proper tribute to the Travel Gods--filled out the crossword incorrectly in pen, asked for a whole can of soda from a harried flight attendant, registered online for a low-fat, low-sodium meal, something out of the ordinary--and now, as a result, in 2006 I must suffer indignities and agonies of the mass transportation variety.
Due to various mishaps (a flat tire on the plane, missed connections, no crew at Houston), it took 13 hours to get to my final destination in Texas. On the way home, still further problems--long layovers, stacking over Baltimore, and then fire trucks following behind our plane as we landed, never a comforting sign. The return trip took only 12 hours. So there's progress, I guess--as long as you don't think about the fact that I could have driven nearly halfway to Texas in the same amount of time, while at least enjoying several stops for barbecue, bathroom breaks, and maybe even a pecan praline log from Stuckey's along the way.
By driving, I also could have avoided the sensory annoyance of watching in silence Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo play the role of "cute couple" in Just Like Heaven. I passed on the $5 headphones but would have gladly spent $10 to $20 on some food. I didn't really need headphones, anyway, as it was pretty much a paint-by-numbers date movie. Boy-meets-ghost-girl, boy-loses-ghost-girl, ghost-girl-eats-boy-alive-and-both-end-up-in-Hell. Something along those lines.
I did learn one thing from the movie, however, and it's this: If Julia Roberts is the anti-Christ--and I'm fully convinced she is--then Reese Witherspoon is her younger, perkier, craftier minion. And if Mark Ruffalo replaces Ben Stiller as the lead in Honey, I Soiled My Male Nurse's Uniform in Front of Your Focking Parents II, I will be none too surprised. But I digress . . . .
Other than the delays, missed connections, and potential disasters, there are a couple of other things that bother me about flying these days. For one, I'm never sure if I'm going to get anything to eat, no matter what time of day I fly. A case in point--flying to Houston from Baltimore during the dinner hour--no food other than two bags of mini pretzels and a can of tomato juice. I'm glad to support a Pennsylvania company like Snyder's of Hanover and a New Jersey company like Campbell's, but this seems like a chintzy way to do so, nonetheless.
Flying from Houston to Baltimore after 1 pm--a light lunch including a small sandwich, some carrot sticks, a cookie, and multiple beverages. Travel time both directions? About the same, at least three hours.
Is there any rhyme or reason to this feeding schedule? In the Aeroflot Airline Customer Service and Passenger Torture Manual, last revised, say, in 1975, does it state that passengers should be fed only rarely and inconsistently in order to always keep them ever hopeful but ever despondent over the lack of nutrition on board? Sort of a Vladimir Nabokov Invitation to a Beheading approach to care and feeding so that your keeper becomes your best and only friend and protector, but your keeper still denies your humanity at every twist and turn? Just guessing.
The other thing that baffles me relates to the entertainment offered. Same amount of time in the air but no movie from Baltimore to Houston, unlike the Houston to Baltimore leg and the aforementioned Just Like You're in Hell and a partial episode of that well-known LCD (as in lowest common denominator) TV sitcom, The King of Queens. (Kevin James does get some extra points for looking cute in a UPS uniform, though.) Again, let's refer to the customer service/torture manual, please. Maybe it's the size or type of plane, but still, how much effort and "stowage" does it take for some boxed lunches and a DVD player?
It wasn't this one trip though that set me off into curmudgeon hyperspace, however. A trip post-Christmas from Kansas City to home fired up my bad attitude phasers. There were multiple delays leaving Kansas City to Chicago. Five+ hours later, I arrive at O'Hare with almost all the service centers closed and learn that my flight to Harrisburg has been canceled--or has it? It's not listed on the departures board; in fact, there isn't anything listed on the departures board for H'burg until 6 freakin' thirty am the next day. Hmmm.
So already aiming for Gold Elite Bitch Status on Continental's One Pass program, I think what the hell? Let's start asking around, maybe if I whine enough--a time-honored American consumer tradition--I can get a discounted hotel room or a coupon for 10% off at Cinna-Bon. But, bizarrely, I discover that my flight home is still taking off in about 40 minutes' time. Nowhere is this listed on the departures board, even at the gate I'm told to appear at 20 minutes ahead of time.
After asking about thirteen times whether this flight is indeed going to Harrisburg, that's Harrisburg, P-E-N-N-S-Y-L-V-A-N-I-A, I decide to take my chances and board. And lo and behold, I'm home in a couple of hours.
Without any luggage, mind you, but home nonetheless.
My bad travel karma has not just been relegated to planes, though. There is the now famous (among colleagues and friends who will still listen to me) six-hour train ride on Amtrak I endured last November, traveling from Philly to H'burg, a trip that usually takes less than two hours. But they ran out of coal to stoke the steam engine, I guess, so we were stuck on a siding outside of Lancaster for four or more hours, until another train could perform an inter-track mission of mercy. We all scrambled across the tracks with our luggage and laptops, leaving behind a family with a wheelchair traveler who was promised assistance when the next train came along. I suspect they are still on the siding waiting for someone to remember to retrieve them. That or have found a nice little life for themselves among the Amish of Southeastern Pennsylvania.
Of course, there was no food on the train, nor any entertainment other than the Amtrak magazine (called, I think, Come on Ride the Train! or maybe Chugga-Chugga-Motion or perhaps Nobody Does It Better than Deutsche Bahn). Shudder. If I hadn't bought some extra books and noshes at 30th Street Station before I departed, it could have been a trip of disastrous Donner Party infamy.
Where and how did it all go so incredibly wrong? I suspect I was too lucky in 2005, able to travel to both England and Germany with nary a mishap, missed connection, or misanthropic glare from transportation crew, whether air-, underground-, or surface-based. I got my low-fat, low-sodium meal; I had an interesting traveling companion on the way over, a nice woman from Heidelberg who knew how to carry on a fun conversation, even at 3 in the morning; I had a personal, in-flight DVD and CD set-up on the way home, getting to watch both Crash and The March of the Penguins and listen to the new Duran Duran album, among others. It was just too good, perhaps.
Still, there were "issues" even in the brief golden age of travel in 2005. Nearly everytime I went to the airport in 2005, I seemed to underestimate my travel time from home to gate. Thus, I arrived at the terminal with the taste of bile in my throat and a jittery manner, just having sprinted the several miles from the outer long-term parking lot to check-in in record time. This, I should warn you, is not a "look" that security personnel want to see coming toward them--a nervous, sweaty, jumpy, disheveled passenger with a shaved head and goatee. You might as well wear a t-shirt that says "I *HEART* PLASTIQUE" and talk loudly about how you learned to fly planes at a South Florida aviation school, but never quite got the hang of landing them.
I also had a close call the morning I tried to go to the Frankfurt airport, bizarrely deciding to take the slow train to the airport rather than the express "because I'll get to see more of Frankfurt this way." Yeah. Brilliant. I might have seen even more of Frankfurt if I just missed the flight altogether, which I nearly did.
There is also this European Union policy--and it's a good one, even if it did get in my way that morning--requiring the thorough searching of all bags, so thorough and hands-on that I felt as though I needed a cigarette afterwards (although one could just inhale the air in Germany for the clean, smooth taste of unfiltered Marlboros, if one wished). Call me old-fashioned, but I easily embarrass when a young woman in a hajib starts to go through my dirty underwear and untouched (grumble, grumble) condom stash.
Let's just call me a Western imperialist pig, a buttboy of the Great Satan, and tell me to have a nice flight, shall we? To her credit, the young woman was totally professional. I, however, heard my voice rise into a queen shriek as I saw her hand head toward a box of unopened Trojans. "Those are personal items! Nothing to see there!" Why didn't I just tell her I had the entire annual poppy production of Afghanistan in my checked baggage, as well as a Kalashnikov and a rocket-launcher in my carry-on?
So what's it all about, Sabena? Travel less in 2006--or, better still, never leave the house again? Take earlier flights instead of afternoon or evening ones when heading to or from the oversold Mid-Atlantic region? Fly exclusively to Europe and only ride on Continental and UK trains and undergrounds? Toss aside my Green Party membership card and only drive in the U.S., preferably in a big, honkin', gas-guzzlin' vehicle that gets 7 mpg highway and is named after a slang term for a blow job?
Frankly, I'm not sure what it's all about. I just know that in 2006 I'm not asking for a Hindu or a kosher meal or a whole can of Diet Coke, will use only pencils for the airline magazine crosswords, and will be damn happy with any Reese Witherspoon, Ben Stiller, or (egad) Julia Roberts vehicle I'm fortunate enough to see on board. I'll be eternally grateful if Amtrak just shows up--anytime, any place, and I can tide myself over with enough crumbs from the seat cushions until we get to our destination. "No, honest, I'm not hungry. I ate like a week ago."
Heck, I will even gladly pay $5--no $10! $5 per ear!--for the privilege of using some otherwise useless airline headphones.
Are you appeased now, oh Travel Gods?
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