Humor Post #69 from the world’s Crankiest Curmudgeon’s Middle School Blog (and probably the awesomest YA blog too) –
Yeah, yeah, I know it’s been way too long since I posted last, but it’s not my fault, really it’s not. Daniel hasn’t put up anything I’ve sent him because he says he’s too busy writing Moose stuff. Moose stuff? What in the world? Since when are moose more important that Dr. Crankenfuss? Anyway, I’ve sent him three posts and he says he’ll get them up this week. “Just give me time,” he says. Yeah, well, it’s time already.
Okay, here goes. Now I know it says Humor Post #69 up at the top, but there’s no humor in this post. Only justified rage. (See picture at above left.) Yep, that’s how I felt after my 3-day trip to New York City. The trip itself was great. We were visiting my cousin in Brooklyn and I had a good time. She’s way too cool. Went up the Empire State Building, visited the Statue of Liberty, and best of all, went to a Yankees game! But that’s the good stuff. I’m here to rant. And I have good reason to after those plane trips.
Like on the way up, they treated my mom like she was a hijacker or something. She had just bought a big bottle of aerosol sunscreen and the security people confiscated it because it was over 4 ounces or something like that. $12 down the toilet. Boy, was she mad. If she had brought a suitcase along, she could have packed it there, but all we had were overnight bags because we didn’t want to get stuck with a $50 charge for two suitcases. So we had to cram everything into something that would fit in the overhead lockers.
Except for that, the trip was okay. The trip from Raleigh to NYC, that is.
New York City, as I said, was fun and great. But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about the Hades we lived through on the way back. See, we got to the airport around 4:00 for a 5:30 flight just to make sure nothing wrong would happen. Yeah, like that helped. The boarding went okay. We were on American Airlines. Then we got ready to take off. We’re like seventh in line and then they send us back to where we started. The pilot came on and said because there was a thunderstorm in Raleigh, we had to wait. So we did wait in that plane, which was starting to get stale, you know. After another half hour or so, they made up get off the plane. Crap! Well, storms in Raleigh usually don’t last very long. We’d only have to wait a while, Mom said. We trudged back into the airport, sat there 10 minutes and an announcement came on and told us to call an 800 number to make new arrangements. They wouldn’t help us where we were; we had to do it ourselves. So Mom called and they gave her all sorts of stupid advice, like “You can take a plane from Kennedy Airport that’s leaving in 20 minutes.” Yeah, except we were at LaGuardia. How were we supposed to get to another airport in that time? Then they tell her there’s a US Air flight leaving in another part of the airport in a little while. So we rush all over the place — that airport is HUGE — to get there and find out when we do get there that we’re too late. All that trouble for nothing. And the US Air people tell us we could have stayed back at American because they had flight leaving at 9:30. Hey, American never told us that! If we hadn’t listened to their advice to go over to US Air, we could have gotten seats on the 9:30 plane. So we go all the way back to American and guess what. Now that’s plane’s sold out, that’s what. So now we’re tired, mad, and hungry. And still in New York.
Long story, right? Okay, the ending is we never got on any flight that night and we had to go all the way back to Brooklyn to stay with our cousin and we had to come back the next morning to FINALLY get a flight to Raleigh. Seemed like half our trip was spent in the airport.
My Grandpa says when he was a kid, flying was fun. They gave you good food and you didn’t even have to pay $6 or $10 or whatever it is they charge now. It came free with your ticket. Wow, what a concept. All I know is next time, we might think about walking to New York. Yeah, we could take our car, but you know what they charge for parking in New York? I could go to college for that.
So Crankenfuss has a warning for all you out there. Just be happy where you are and make all your relatives visit YOU. Or, you can just be incredibly rich, have your own plane, and just jet around to your heart’s delight.
Easy enough. I should have thought of that back before my trip.
Anyway, talk to you very soon again (if Daniel gets his head out of that moose mess he’s in).
from Dr. Crankenfuss,
Your Dude with the Tude