Flying Lessons Learned

[It appears that my girlfriend's taken my writing spirit and written another blog entry. Fortunately, I have many other spirits in my spirit jar. Without further adoodoo:]

Lessons learned. Or rather, lessons updated/relearned/revisited/reminded of.

Also, "Why Delta is Better Than Other Airlines."

You know, I used to consider myself to be a bit self-absorbed until I saw how people react to a delayed flight. I am not the only one on this flight that has been delayed 3 hours, but I may be one of the only ones not throwing a fit. Seriously, you're not the only one who's pissed off your flight was delayed.

(But when it comes to my boyfriend not texting me back within 2.3 minutes of the original sent text, ohhh boy, watch out because all hell is about to break loose and someone's going to end up with something thrown at their head).

I decided to entertain myself. As a girl with middle-child syndrome, I’m rather good at this. Perhaps all these people grew up with a lot of siblings and just don't know how to entertain themselves. Doubtful. But I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.

I decide to go sit at a bar by myself (which leads me up to where I am now). The lady next to me had some kind of voucher and her ticket said she was also on my flight. I asked her if they were giving them to everyone and she told me yes and to go get one. I go back to the gate and ask if I can have whatever they are giving out (please) and the woman laughs and says, "Okay. You'll take whatever we're giving out." At least she's in a good mood. I'd be screaming at the morons demanding earlier flights if I were her. She then asks if I'd like to move seats. She observes that I have a middle seat and I sigh because that’s the worst seat ever. Then she says, "oh, you don't need to move. The two people next to you moved, you now have the row to yourself. Would you still like to move?" I have all 3 seats to myself! That's only my favorite thing ever, aside from missing my flights and having to fly standby for the next one and then getting upgraded to first class. Now I can sleep on the flight.

Then, she tells me I have a $7 meal voucher (food is way more expensive than that, but that's nice of them). She also tells me that Delta is offering a $50 credit toward a future Delta flight. What?! I thank her and run off like a giddy schoolchild with my meal voucher and $50 credit.

Okay, as I'm claiming my prizes (I’m pretending they're prizes to get myself more excited so I don't get all pissy), this woman next to me is complaining, of course. She’s complaining that she has kids and a father and she's so inconvenienced and she's sorry for complaining but, she's inconvenienced. Bitch, you're not sorry for complaining, or you wouldn't do it in the first place. What the hell are you talking about. No one's sorry for complaining, that's the whole point of complaining.

What would you like this person to do? Put you on a magic carpet and fly you to your destination? Because we all don't have appointments and stuff to do tomorrow, right? You're the only one? I’m just as inconvenienced and I’m not bitching. I’m skipping around with my seven dollar meal ticket like a monkey with a banana.

I thought it was nice that Delta agents stayed so calm and helpful. And even offered any sort of compensation. Not many airlines do so much as apologize for delayed flights. So go sit down woman. There's clearly nothing anyone can do or we wouldn't all be sitting around waiting. What would these people like? They would have rather flown on an unsafe aircraft? I don't get it.

So the moral of today's story:

Do not complain. No one cares.
And you're annoying.