TheOriginalJada.com

I don’t want to just bag on the entire airline industry. Times are tough for everyone and the airlines are always getting bashed and I don’t think I have anything original to add to the topic.

BUT, Southwest pissed me off royally. They don’t charge you to check your bags, YAY! But, they have that absurd cattle call seating that I loathe. Boo. We did online check-in exactly 24 hours before our flight and still ended up at the back of the B section. Bastards! And as just a general airline complaint [I said I wasn’t going to do that, but I guess I am] why do planes load front to back? Wouldn’t back to front actually make more sense? I hate those people who stand in the aisle blocking everything in order to mess with their bags in the overhead bins or take off their jacket or whatever while the rest of the passengers wait on them. Gah! But loading back to front would solve all that! Wouldn’t it? Yes, yes it would. On the other hand, Southwest flights are still pretty cheap. And I like all the little hearts, especially on the drink stirrers even though I don’t ever drink on flights, but definitely not now.

My ire at Southwest though is more specific, and it includes a few other things I loathe: Las Vegas and dudes who think bachelor parties are really fucking cool, MAN! We tried to get a direct flight from Chicago to Reno, but it simply wasn’t going to happen. No way, no how. So, we had to stop in Vegas first. Fine, I’m not happy about it, but whatever. At least we don’t have to change planes, right? Unfortunately, a group of 8 really cool guys [really SUPER cool guys, people, the kinds who still live with 4 roommates as they close in on their 30th birthday and work in Skokie type of cool, with hair plugs!] kind of had to fill in wherever they could over 6 rows with us right in the middle of it. They had obviously already hit up the lovely drinking establishments at Midway [of course] by the time they boarded the plane, and decided no distance between them was going to interrupt their conversations about nailing hot chicks and getting WASTED, DUDE! In Vegas baby, VEGAS! Hells yeah!

I gripped mh’s hand and hissed “someone is going to die in here today,” and I think he thought I meant him because of the way my nails were digging into his wrist.

I tried to ignore them, I really did, and the very second we were allowed to resume our usage of electronic devices I had my Ipod on. Not even the soothing sounds of Thom Yorke could calm me down and drown the idiots out. I read magazines I had saved for the flight. I drank club soda. I actually did contemplate killing mh because of my jealousy of his abilities to sleep on planes and/or take lovely pharmaceuticals like Xanax, both things I can’t do. But I just couldn’t ignore the constant shouts back and forth, the grabbing of the back of my seat to pull himself up by the guy behind me so he could yell at his comrades or throw money to them. He also kicked my seat incessantly.

And as the flight crawled forward toward that awful city in the desert they just got drunker and drunker, louder and louder, and more and more obnoxious. And yet, the airline attendants continued to serve them. I personally witnessed 3 other people complain about them and ask them to be cut off before I did, too. The response I received: “Oh, they’re just having fun. There’s no harm in that.” Oh OK, I see how it is Mr. Gay, but let me tell you that I don’t care how drunk you get them, those guys aren’t going to be hooking up with either you or that sad Cougar wannabee of a colleague of yours. I didn’t tell him that, but just slunk back to my seat in defeat instead.

About 20 minutes before we landed, a man a few rows ahead of us broke his calm, stood up and yelled at the group. It didn’t accomplish much, so I decided to join in thinking everyone else would jump in as well. Didn’t happen. One of the DUDES just turned around and told me I should fly United if I didn’t like it. Wha-wha-WHAT?

Listen, I know these guys probably though mh and I were as lame as we thought they were. I’m sure they think our choice of a quiet weekend spent in the peaceful serenity on the north side of Lake Tahoe hiking and relaxing is totally lame in comparison to their version of fun on the opposite end of the same state. We’re married, I’m pregnant, we’re not out drinking cheap beer and trying to bang drunk chicks. I get it. But the thing is, we weren’t in their faces, ears and seats for almost 4 hours about it.

We finally landed and let everyone get off before we were told that Southwest made a change and we would have to change planes after all. Bastards! Well, it gave me an opportunity to make an official complaint about the flight. Lucky for me, the woman at the gate was exactly who I needed to speak to and she just happened to see the 8 DUDES stumble off the plane in a drunken stupor. She confided to me that she couldn’t believe that they had been continued to be served on the plane, and then she gave me two free tickets on Southwest as an apology.

Score? I don’t know. Two free tickets is pretty cool for travel junkies like mh and I, but I’m just about at the point where I can’t fly anymore. And, it means another trip on Southwest. At least I have a year to use them. I just know one place we won’t be going to.

Luckily too, our return flight was direct.