F-ing Air Travel

Air travel blows. Everyone knows this. If you disagree, you are either rich and always fly first class, or you are stupid. Take your pick. Even people that have never flown have at least seen the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is stuck in coach inbetween the guy sleeping with all his bags and the lady chewing her gum excessively loud. Sure, flying serves a purpose. It gets me across great distances fast, allows me to see the world, and visit friends/family I would probably rather not see. That is why I am willing to put up with the bullshit that goes on in airplanes. It doesn't mean I have to like it, but I will put up with it. Here are some of the problems with air travel:

1) The airport. The airport is miserable. You have to get there, which sucks, because there is traffic, the public transportation takes forever, you have to shell out $25 for a cab, or con a friend into giving you a ride which you will have to repay with several drinks and/or meals in the future. Once you are the airport, you know you are in for a nightmare. The anticipation of what is to come is daunting. You wait in line to check your bags/check in, or you do it outside in the cold and pay off some guy for this "service." Then you go wait in line for security and have about a 50/50 chance of getting pulled aside for a security check in which you have to empty the contents of your bag and subject yourself to being "felt up" by the security guard. Good times.

2) Tiny seats. If you are above 5'5'' and/or weight more than 170lbs (probably about 80% of the population in my professional estimate) these seats aren't designed for you. Your knees hit the seat in front of you, you are sharing a 3 inch wide armrest with some other person, and your back is arched in some awkward position that was never intended for human beings. There is no way you are getting off the plane feeling good physically due to the cramped nature of the seat. Basically your options are: suffer through hell, spring an extra $100-$500 for business or first class which is marginally better, but the free drinks up there help, or cut off your legs and possibly an arm.

3) The people around you. Invariably you either end up next to an old lady asking you dumb questions and spilling drinks on you, a fat man/woman that literally spills over onto you forcing you to have body contact with them for the duration of the flight, or someone who will not shut up and stop talking to you. Leave me alone asshole. Listening to my ipod with my eyes shut does not mean I want to know where you are from. Somehow you never give up hope that the hot girl you saw at the gate will end up next to you, but this never happens. You are given hope, only to have crushed mercilessly 20 minutes later. I would rather not have hope at all.

4) Cost. Sweet deal I get to fly from Boston to Chicago for just under $200. Wait what!? $200! That's not a sweet deal. That sucks. Imagine all the cool shit you could buy for $200. Now imagine that instead of buying that cool shit, you buy a plane ticket to Chicago. I say you are better off staying at home with your new video games/console, music, movies, books, cash, food, porn (oh wait, porn is free), hookers, and/or whatever else it is you like.

5) Food. The food is terrible. I could go into a grocery store, cover my eyes in the frozen food section and pick something at random, take it home and cover my eyes again as I throw it in the microwave and hit buttons at random and end up with a much better meal. I feel like they have to try hard to make the meals taste like garbage. Granted the meals you pay for on the plane are sometimes edible, but you are paying for them! $10!? I could go to Quiznos and get a turkey ranch and swiss and chips and a soda and have money left over. What do you get on the plane? Some crackers and an Oreo cookie. Still it is better than the shit they give for free. My advice: either eat a lot before you get on the plane, bring your own food, or take a dump on a tray and offer it to the flight attendant and see how he/she likes it.

Here's what I would do different:

1) I would turn around all the seats so they face the back of the plane. This is just a safety measure. If the plane crashes you are more likely to survive and be uninjured this way, In fact, I would do this in cars too, except for the driver of course. How cool would that be?

2) Take out about 10% of the rows and one column of seats. Put in bigger seats. Charge slightly more and ask for donations.

3) When booking the ticket ask me what kind person I would like to sit next to. Fat? Skinny? Old? Young? Child? Attractive? Ugly? Quiet? Loud? On the seating chart show me what the people are like around that seat. Well there is a quiet person next to that seat, but there is a 10 year old behind it with a habit of kicking the seat. I'll pass.

4) Give me drugs that make me no longer care.. about anything.