Fly the Friendly Skies

Remember when you thought flying on an airplane was fun - an adventure? Those days are O-V-E-R. I've decided to run for president of the FAA (or whatever organization controls the rules of the airports and airlines) and institute some new rules.

First the security lines. I declare that when I am head of the FAA, the rule will be "if you have not flown within 30 days you are required to watch a mandatory video on how to check in your luggage and go through security." How frustrating it is to stand in line at Southwest for 20 minutes only to have the person in front of you get to the check-in stand and realize that they have to fill out a luggage ID tag to attach to their luggage. What the heck have they been doing for the last 20 minutes??? Or in the security line for them to discover that they have their favorite perfurme and shampoo in the check in luggage, change in their pockets and refuse to take their shoes off? Come on people. It's just not that complicated.

Next it's the boarding process. OK we all learned how to count in kindergarten. Your boarding pass has a number on it and you line up in numerical order. Again....it's not that hard. You don't need to line up 30 minutes before boarding and you also don't gather near where you're supposed to be in line. If I'm number 58 and you're 61, I get to be ahead of you so get out of my way.

Finally, go to the bathroom BEFORE you get on the plane. Yesterday I was flying out of IAH to visit Sweetie. I woke up at 4:45am to catch a flight departing at 7:25am. I got to the airport only to find out that bad weather the previous night had screwed up all the flights coming in on Wednesday night. So, because of "crew mandatory rest" (an FAA rule that I will keep in place when I'm president of the FAA cuz I want to make sure my pilot isn't asleep at the wheel), my flight was now delayed until 9:15am. Of course that meant I would miss my connection in Atlanta, but Delta had already taken care of that and rebooked me to the 1:10pm connector. Finally at 9:00 they boarded us. We all got on the plane and pulled away from the terminal only for the pilot to tell us that the runway was being inspected (why at 9:15am I can't tell you) and all of the planes were having to move to a new runway and it would be a while. "Stay in your seats though because when they tell us it's our turn we will take off immediately" he added. Well about 30 minutes later the pilot comes on and tells us that we had our turn but that because everyone was not in their seat, we now had to wait another 10 minutes. When that guy walked out of the bathroom back to his seat I had to contain myself not to trip him from my aisle seat. WHAT A JERK!!!!! Of course when we landed in Atlanta, I ran to the gate of my connecting flight and the person at the gate said I missed the flight by about 3 minutes. THANKS MR "I GOTTA GO PEE"!!!!! I had the pleasure of waiting another hour in an airport before I got to my Sweetie. I think that man should be banned from flying for life.