Airline injustice

When it comes to my ability to tolerate plane travel, I’ve really come a long way in the last couple years; I now travel often enough that I can take the ups and downs pretty gracefully. I barely notice my fellow travelers and their beastly children anymore, long lines and pushy people no longer phase me, and I’ve learned to deal with the fact that I always end up next to someone who wants to engage in the most excruciating small talk possible over the course of a 4-hour flight. However, as with all things, there is an end point. Usually in the shape of a brick wall so you can slam your head against it a few times because that shit would feel better than what you’re actually dealing with.  

Over the past few weeks I have traveled enough that if I were infected with some type of contagious disease, half the world would have caught it by now from me specifically. Throughout all of this travel, I have remained calm. I was calm for 8 hours of transatlantic plane time, screaming babies and all. I was calm for the 4 flights that followed that flight within the next week. I was calm when 3 of those flights had me in a plane for a total of 14 hours in one 24-hour period. I was calm in the customs line that would have wrapped around Florida and calm when the customs officer made me unpack my entire bag to satisfy his damn curiosity about the cigars I had purchased in Spain. I was calm both times that my body was adjusting to an 8-hour jetlag. I was calm when I asked my family to endure a 6-hour round trip car ride to get me to the airport and I was calm when I woke up at 6:40 am to start that trip.

Then my calm ran out. I walked up to the digital departure and arrival screen after enduring TSA’s flaw-filled security checks for the 7^th time in three weeks. I found my flight and scanned the line for my gate number. It was then, when I saw the word “cancelled”, scrawled in red where my gate number should have been, that I lost my patience. Pure, unadulterated rage washed over me as I used every last bit of inhibition I possessed to stop myself from falling on the floor and screaming. I WAS IN THE HOME STRETCH AFTER HOURS OF OVERTIME AND SOMEONE JUST STOLE HOME BASE.

Someone was going to pay for this. And by someone I mean many ones and by pay for this I mean unknowingly be the object of my irritation and therefore the subject of my very angrily typed blog. Take that, world.

To begin, this one goes out to the American Airlines representative who picked up the phone when I called about this cancellation, since no one bothered to call me:

Hello, Tasha with American Airlines. Thanks for picking up the phone after 12.5 minutes of your automated system asking me what I wanted without the apparent ability to understand the words “cancelled” or “flight”. Thanks for offering me a “courtesy” replacement flight at 11:59 PM at this timely hour of 11 AM. As much as I’ve come to feel that airports are like home, I think I’ll decline your courteous offer to spend the next 12 hours in the SLC airport waiting for a redeye to Philadelphia. Yes, I am going to stay on this phone until you offer me something earlier. No, I don’t believe you that there are no other options for me. I don’t believe you because I have a laptop, an Internet connection, and Travelocity. I see other flights here. You are giving one of those to me. Also, if I had it my way, you would be calling it an apology flight, not a courtesy flight. Courtesy is giving me first class so I can drink enough free booze to forget this happened. 

...Got a 'courtesy' flight at a more appropriate but still annoyingly delayed time. Felt annoyed for duration of flight despite consumption of peanut butter M&Ms...

To the passenger sitting 3 seats to my left: Hello, sir. I am currently listening to the mind-numbing hum of a Boeing 737 charging through the airways at 400+ miles an hour. The fact that this level of noise is not sufficient enough to mask the sound of your CHEWING from ACROSS THE AISLE is a problem. I’m not entirely sure what the consequences are for murder in the first degree when you’re airborne, but we're about to find out if you don’t put that bag of chips away immediately.

To the child sitting directly in front of me: Hello, small child. Let’s just get this out there: I don’t think you’re cute. I don’t think your antics are charming. I don’t think that you turning around in your seat to stare at me slyly from the corner of your eye is adorable. I also don’t think it is particularly adorable that, after turning to stare at me, you move on to flopping around in your seat like a hooked fish, causing everything on my tray table, which is attached to the back of your chair, to go flying. On the contrary, it makes me want to lock you in the bathroom for the duration of the flight. No, I don’t want to see the app you are using that teaches you how to put make-up on Barbie’s face. Do a puzzle or something. Actually, I don’t care what you do, just stop involving me in it.  If you are under the age of 18 and you aren’t related to me, I can’t be responsible for my actions if you annoy me any further. I don’t have the energy to muster tolerance for other people’s ratchety little monsters, society be damned.

To the mother of the child sitting behind me: It’s cute that your child is only sitting behind me because you decided you needed some extra room for your bags or your other kid or something and so, midflight, you banished him to the vacant seat behind mine. I am super happy watching you nap right now while your kid kicks my seat and yells so loud that I can’t hear Nelly rapping St. Louis gold through my headphones (which I initiated in order to drown out the chip chomper on my left, thank you very much). This just in from someone who has never raised a child: I think you’re doing it wrong. So there.

To the flight attendants: CAN’T YOU SEE THAT I AM IN A BRATTY CHILD SANDWICH HERE? FOR CHRIST'S SAKE, STOP GIVING THEM SODA.

To the passenger next to me: Staaaaaahhhhp asking me about my life. It makes me feel like I have to ask you about your life, and I don’t care about your life. I’m sorry about that, but I’m very tired and super annoyed and it’s hard to muster the appropriate facial expressions for your many stories. You are taking up the entire armrest, you can’t have that AND my attention for four hours. Also, I saw you snapchatting during takeoff. If this plane crashes due to your insolent refusal to switch on airplane mode, I’m using your body as a shield.

To American Airlines: Hello, oh titan of industry. You are the worst. If you’re going to ask me for my e-mail, phone number, my first-and-yet-to-be-born child, and everything in between when I purchase a ticket to board your aircraft, the least your lazy butt can do is contact me in some way if you’re going to wake up and decide you don’t want to operate that particular aircraft on the particular day that I paid to be on it. I watched the news, chumps, and the weather was fine.

Also this:

1) You suck for not having snacks on any of your domestic flights. If you’re going to strand me in the airport at this fragile time in my life, I WANT PRETZELS. And Biscoff cookies. Maybe borrow some from Delta.

2) The weird fog that always comes out of your plane’s air conditioning vents makes me uncomfortable.

3) Your tendency to delay, like, 73% of your flights due to “mechanical problems” also makes me very uncomfortable.

 4) Your in-flight WiFi never, ever works.

5) You forced me to put away my laptop JUST when Hotstepper started playing on Itunes, and then you didn’t land the plane for another TWENTY minutes. I cannot abide this nefarious behavior.

That is all.

A match made in heaven

It turns out that in order to be his easy-going, laid back self, Taylor needs me to be my type-A, never-laid-back-about-anything self. I complete him like that. 

I figured this out one day when I was in a really good mood, mostly because I had discovered there was a Taco Bell within a short distance from the apartment. Despite his distaste for east coast fast food, I lured Taylor there with promises of a Grilled Stuft Nacho. I can’t really blame him for hesitating – fast food is a different thing over here than it was in Idaho. The fries are usually cold, the wait generally twice as long, and the employees generally quite cranky. However, I refused to believe that Taco Bell would let me down like that, so off we went. 

When we arrived we walked up to the counter and, after an annoyed glance, the drive-thru girl went back to sweeping. We stood there for a few awkward minutes until another girl walked up and looked at us with a very confused expression. “Are you ready to order?” she asked. I nodded and happily ordered my food, followed by Taylor grumpily requesting a #6. We paid and I went to fill my drink, after which I went in search of Taylor, who had disappeared. I found him standing amongst a bunch of tables, looking disgusted. He went to sit down at a booth and stood back up almost immediately, huffing about how filthy it was.

“I guess we’ll just have to sit at a table”, he grouched. So we sat down at a table, where I quietly sipped on my soda because I wasn’t sure what was happening. Then, after a few silent sips:

“I really wanted to sit at a booth!” Taylor suddenly exclaimed.

“Well, just let me wipe that one off and we can sit there,” I offered.

“No! Look at the floor underneath it, so disgusting”, he responded.

We sat there quietly for another few minutes until our food came. As I was busily developing a relationship with my Chalupa, I heard Taylor say, “Oh! She is so annoying!” and I followed his gaze to the girl who had taken our order.

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked around my mouthful of happiness.

“I don’t know, she’s just…annoying!” he said again, followed by a vicious bite of his taco.

I was torn between laughter and concern over the fact that Taylor, who never appears to be annoyed by anything, was annoyed at this person he would probably never see again. So I just said, “Be nice, she’s pregnant and probably tired”. He spit out some lettuce and said indignantly, “I’m tired, too!”

Around this time, a group of noisy children was running around the restaurant, treating the tables like gym toys and screaming at the top of their lungs. I wasn’t paying them much mind until they finally left with their parents and Taylor said in a venomous voice, “Why are people allowed to have so many kids?! They’re sucking up all the resources!” and then, as he stared at their retreating figures out the restaurant window, “SEE! That little kid took TWO straws!!”

I was at a loss for words and, again, didn’t want to laugh at him in his fragile state, so I decided my best course of action was to offer him a soothing pat and a bite of my Chalupa.

On the way home he complained bitterly about “east coast potholes” and “east coast fast food” and anything else beginning with the words “east coast”. A few hours later, when Taylor joined me for a workout (that chalupa comes with a price, after all) and Jillian Michaels was screeching, “you better bring some INTENTION to this workout”, Taylor responded, “you better bring some SHUT YOUR MOUTH to it”.

Whilst muddling through my post-workout haze (i.e. laying comatose on the living room floor), I was pondering how weird it was that I was in one of those rare, happy-go-lucky moods at the same time he was in one of those rare, everything sucks moods. Then, in a flash of self-proclaimed brilliance, I popped up off the floor and yelled, “Dear God! This apartment looks like a hurricane hit it! I don’t understand how two people can make such a freaking mess!” followed by a dramatic stomp to the bedroom after snatching up a lone pillow from the couch. Taylor immediately followed me into the bedroom, taking the pillow and placing it nicely on the bed, speaking in soothing tones about how the apartment looked fine. After assuring himself that I was no longer agitated about the state of the apartment, he proceeded to spend the rest of the night happily flipping through TV channels and chattering away about some Facebook post he saw about beards.

So, while Taylor clearly recognizes that ALL THE THINGS are annoying, he appears to be content with the idea that I will attend to the business of actually being annoyed about them. In exchange, he will attend to the business of driving in all the scary places while I wring my hands in the passenger seat. It’s a match made in heaven.

She bad. Well, kind of.

Not only have I driven in east coast traffic, I have driven in east coast traffic Like. A. Boss. Sort of. It went down like this:

(Quick side note: Apparently, Delaware is the most boring place on the east coast, or so I’m told. If you live in Idaho Falls, you are officially living amongst twice the amount of people that I am, but SOMEHOW there are three times the amount of vehicles on the road here. Also, I stand by my previously aired complaint about the excessive number of highways and on-ramps, and would like to add that no one taught Delaware about street signs – they either aren’t labeled, are labeled with ten different names, or have ridiculous names like “Purgatory Swamp”…how fitting.)

But like I said, it went down like this:

Myself and another graduate student decided we should go to the gym after spending our afternoon in my office picking through a large box of chocolates. She decided I was going to drive so I could find my way to the gym from that point forward – after all, I had eaten way more chocolates than she had. So we piled into my car and ventured out into the 5:00 traffic. We arrived at the gym about an hour later, way too late for the Body Combat class we had intended to attend. We looked around for a second at all the other exercise options available and then piled back into my car to head home. I was extremely frazzled after enduring all the traffic and, even though I like this friend of mine very much, she doesn’t really have the qualities I look for in a co-pilot. If you are the directing passenger in my vehicle, I rely on you to tell me which lane I need to be in at least two miles before it’s time to turn. My friend decided to tell me I was in the wrong lane for an upcoming right turn approximately three seconds before I needed to take it. I was pretty annoyed about that but decided I could switch lanes quickly enough since there were only three cars coming up on my right. So I flipped on my blinker while screeching at the other cars to hurry the eff up. The first two cars wisely heeded my advice. The third car, however, inexplicably stopped in the middle of the road, right before the exact spot that I would need to be turning. The cars behind me started laying on their horns and my cortisol levels were exploding. “GET THE HELL OUT OF MY WAY”, I screamed, my arms waving around frantically. Meanwhile, my passenger was squeaking, “It’s okay! It’s okay! Just go straight and we’ll come back around!”, which I was ignoring because I had been in the car in this insane traffic for long enough as it was and this idiot in the car next to me wasn’t going to sentence me to another unnecessary five minutes. So, I put my gas pedal to the floor, swung the car in a wide arc around this moron, and successfully turned (there is some argument as to whether that turn was executed on two wheels or four) onto the street I needed, all while managing to throw a dirty look into his or her headlights as our faces passed through the beams. “Bam, east coast”, I thought, feeling pretty impressed with myself, all the while imagining how I would go home next time with a little street cred to flip around. My friend however, was not impressed at all, and beyond insisting that I almost plowed over some unfortunate pedestrian on the crosswalk, didn’t speak much after her screams subsided. I felt that she was over-dramatizing the situation but allowed her to do so since I imagine she will volunteer to drive if we ever go anywhere together again. I’ll check with her on that when we’re back on speaking terms.

Despite this self-proclaimed roadway success, I am still absolutely refusing to drive in places like Philadelphia. In fact, through a series of very complicated events, I recently found myself alone in Philadelphia with my car. This is a place where it is normal to see cars PARKED in TURN LANES and on SIDEWALKS because they’ve run out of room. A place where drivers scream and honk and spin cookies in intersections…or maybe they’re just pulling off a quick U-turn…either way, I simply cannot function in such a lawless society and only got back home because someone drove the 45 miles to Philadelphia with someone else who then drove me and my car 45 miles back home. It was traumatizing. Don’t worry Idaho – I’m representing over here.

It's not all stupid

Have you seen Armageddon? You know the space scene where the nuclear bomb is being detonated from Earth and the people on the spacecraft have, like, five minutes to figure out which wires to cut before they’re blown to bits and the world ends because of the asteroid they were originally on their way to destroy? Not to exaggerate or anything, but I feel like that scene pretty much equaled my life from last August until last December. When this hellacious stretch of time (I will refrain from boring you with the details but know this: I am lucky to be alive. I am also super dramatic, so there’s that) finally came to a close, I collapsed on the couch for several days in a row and alternated between napping, watching The Big Bang Theory, napping some more, and watching Armageddon (hence the above reference). Taylor, who for some time only saw me as I left in the morning and then when I collapsed into bed at night, began circling the couch occasionally, either asking who I was, asking if I was going to shower eventually, or making fun of me for crying every time I watched Bruce Willis say goodbye to his daughter before hand-detonating the bomb that saved the world. What a brave, brave man (that sentence could apply to both Bruce Willis for saving the world and to Taylor for daring to interrupt my movie with inferences about my hygiene). After surviving these crazy months, I think I can say that I know what Bruce was feeling in those last moments. Except for the actually being in space part. And the fate of the entire planet depending on me part. And the stone-faced acceptance of death part…actually no, I did experience that. The point is we both had our troubles. The other point is that I’m back, for a moment at least, to chat about how things are going over here in the land of the east.

As you may have inferred from the tone of my first few post-move blogs, my semi-permanent departure from home reduced me to a heartbroken blob of jelly for some time. I was a desperate, lonely woman – lonely enough that I may have considered befriending the homeless guys outside of Dunkin Doughnuts who called me a bitch one day and then asked me to buy them a sandwich. Now that I’ve just about made it through 1 year, 5 months, and 19 days over here, I find myself feeling slightly adjusted (read: nightly weeping is no longer the norm) and I think the time has come to give face to some of the positive things that have been creeping in the background with barely a nod from yours truly. I’m starting small since a blog that is not a tirade against the bitter injustices of the world is kind of a new thing for me…

One of my best post-move moments may very well have been discovering the wonders of the headphones that came with my Galaxy SIII. I bought it a while ago and tossed the accompanying headphones into a junk drawer, thinking they were cheesy and something I would have no use for. Somehow, they made it to Delaware with me and made themselves useful the other day when my sweet pink headphones sputtered out their last musical note. Once out of the package, I noticed they had some sort of volume control button on the wires and, forgetting they had come with my phone, I tried them out with my Ipod. This led to some weird fast forward/rewind phenomenon that just ended up pissing me off. I relayed this information to Taylor, who suggested I plug them into my phone and pretend like I lived in the 21^st century. I did this when he wasn’t looking and decided they were still useless because I never listen to music on my phone. Then Taylor, who must have known what I was doing, called me from the other room. I pushed the little square on the headphone wire and it instantly paused my music and answered the call. “Oh my god!!” I yelled, “It answered the phone!!” to which Taylor responded, sounding annoyed, that I didn’t have to scream. I informed him that I needed to be louder since I didn’t have the phone up to my mouth. He said, “Babe. It doesn’t have to be near your mouth”. I was astounded by this until I figured that it must just turn on the speaker phone when it answers, so I decided to test how powerful the speaker phone was by putting the phone as far away from me as possible and asking whispered questions. I suddenly realized what was happening when Taylor was able to answer the questions I whispered even when I was laying on the floor with the phone stretched as far away from me as the headphone wires would allow. I jumped up and burst out of the bedroom door, yelling that I was pretty sure these headphone wires had a microphone in them somewhere. Taylor looked flabbergasted and yelled “Holy shit!”

 I only realized later that he was being facetious, so I had an hour or so of genuine wonder that I thought he was sharing with me. Apparently, you can be in your twenties in the 21^st century and be completely unaware of basic technological advances. Regardless, I’ve been taking all my calls with my headphones in, and feeling pretty cool about it. 

While it is true that this could have happened just as easily in Idaho, points go to the east by simple virtue of the fact that it happened here when everything else was stupid. Well, almost everything else; I’ll be back later with other non-stupid stuff happening outside of Idaho borders, because while I still can’t say that I love it here, I guess I'm okay with admitting that it’s not all stupid.