In the last 2 months, I have flown all over the country. STL, IND(x2), CHI, ANA, JFK, LAX, SLC, SDF, EWR and back. I have flown Continental, Delta, American Airlines, and Southwest. The experience I have had on each flight is noteworthy for its own unendingly poop-filled reasons.* At first, I thought about writing a letter to major representatives of each airline company but quickly remembered that I'm a realist and not some soft-bellied, liberal D who wants "change" for the sake of being difficult. In lieu of wasting a 37-cent stamp I decided to grade my experience with each corporation right here on WCMMB, just for you. Hopefully someone will read this someday and it will enlighten them while deciding which fecal-faced carrier to fly on.

Continental

It may as well be called Continentawful. This was an upsetting turn-around for me because this was my "go-to" airline. Once upon a time I guess. The 4 times I've ridden Continental, I was messed with each time. The last flight actually made me want to become really old for a brief period so I could go home, fall down a flight of stairs, snap my hip, and then sue Continental. Only then could I feel justified for the torturous baby screams that were breaking my eardrums the ENTIRE flight home. Not for half the flight. Not a quarter of the flight. THE ENTIRE FLIGHT HOME. I wanted to jump out of the airplane.

Granted, the screaming baby was not Continentals fault but they shouldn't allow screaming babies to live, let alone venture onto a flight filled with multiple people with ears. They should check babies at security and if they are loud and/or ugly then the ticket checker should discard it in the garbage with the rest of the lost luggage from their other flights. Which brings me to my next point.

Why can't airlines hire people who can move a suitcase from point A to point B? Do you need a degree in baggage handling for this position? Apparently it would help. I waited for my luggage entirely more than is reasonable let alone imaginable on 3 out of my 4 Continental flights. It leaves you to wonder if they have Stevie Wonder sorting the bags out. And that's not a knock on Stevie, who is a great artist, but I'm sure he KNOWS his career as a baggage sorter was finished the day he woke up and said "Damn. I can't see anything!" What he DOESN'T know is that he would perform said job at around the same 50/50 rate that it ends up being anyway.

So for those counting at home, that's about 3.5 hours of my life wasted waiting for my luggage, 18 hours suffering with a massive headache from ugly babies/fat mothers crying in my ear (to mention 14 of which were spent convulsing through nausea-inducing turbulence). Screw Continental. I want my day back.

Delta

My experience with Delta has ALWAYS been a terrible one. This time flying Delta was somewhat different though. They had an acceptable check-in process and average food. I watched a decent movie on the way home [see:the prestige] and played a game or two on the personal TV they provide. The second flight is one that I slept through. Not bad. However, I attribute a lot of my ease (and I use this term LOOSELY) to the friends accompanying me throughout the flights. On top of that, I expected the flights to be crappy and it probably only lived up to my expectations. The unhelpful stewardesses (excuse me......steward-people) and slow departure didn't piss me off because I was prepared for things like this. It's like when you walk into a chick flick with your girl and you EXPECT it to suck major yak testicles, and when it does you don't notice. The only downside is you find yourself saying things like "Hugh Grant is a pretty talented actor," only to realize weeks later that he's precisely as awful as you had expected. He just didn't piss you off as much as he did the first time you saw one of his atrocious movies. Flying Delta is exactly like watching your second Hugh Grant movie.

Southwest

I only flew Southwest once. Check that one off my list of things NEVER to do again. Their slogan might as well be "How quickly can you piss off a weary traveler who just wants to go home without hassle?" A little truth in advertising, ya know? Well, the answer for employees of Southwest is less than 5 minutes. The first Southwest flight I had to take was a standby flight. I didn't know the first thing about how difficult standby flights could be. So I figured it would be simpler to just ask someone who deals with these things on a daily basis. Perhaps, say, oh I don't know, a southwest employee? Yeah right. What an a-hole I am for expecting any sort of answers from these mo-mos. Are these people part of a union? Do they get paid more than me? I won't even look it up because I'd probably lose my mind. I digress. 

After waiting about an hour in line, I finally reach the person behind the kiosk (I can't in good form call them employees because they were ZERO help. Actually they negatively-affected my view of Southwest so they might as well be called an employee of a competitor). I tried my best to explain to this person that I am on standby for flight S220. I have all the relevant information ready. I have the flight number, departure time, destination city, and ID in hand. This Southwest employee might as well have asked me what airline I was flying. Apparently my diligence was too confusing for this AIRPORT employee because he immediately started typing science knows what into his keyboard. So I waited. And I waited. I waited some more. At one point he actually looked like he was making progress when he paused to adjust his crotch. Nope. Just an itch. Finally, I blurt out "Excuse me. Are you checking the flight availability for me?" The man looks at me like an infant child seeing his first movie.

"What did you want again?" He says.

"Hi. Let's start over. I'm looking for someone who can wash my underwear with a toothbrush. Can you help me?"

"Oh. You want to get on the next available flight to Newark. Here ya go. Enjoy your flight."

"Walnut Salad."

"You're welcome."

American Airlines

This cameltoe of an airline blew me away. I've never been successfully shot out of an airplanes cavernous rear in such succession then the times I've ridden AA. Never in my 25 years of existence have I met someone who likes a seat with a metal rod that jabs them in the back whenever they move. What were they thinking? The only thing that kept me entertained throughout the flights was me imagining that I was in an Iraqi torture chamber being whipped by Merril Hodge. On top of this, I had some seizure imitator behind me who felt the need to shake my chair every ten minutes, ya know, just to keep me on my toes. I finally turned around to her and said very politely, "can you please stop making my chair have epilepsy, you gold-digging crotch-crab?"

Little did I know that this was just the beginning. Next to me were two Australians who smelled like a weird mix of patchouli oil and my dogs crotch after a hot summers day of rolling around in dead deer entrails. It was awful. At one point, I had to stick my finger in my crack and give myself a dirty sanchez so I could fall sleep. When I finally arrived at the airport, I should have realized that my bags wouldn't have come out for 2 hours and gone to run a marathon. How silly of me. After the first hour of waiting, people started to get restless. We were all looking at each other with suspicion. Which a-hole caused this delay in my luggage? Where is that snake hiding? I started to convince myself that I was on a weird reality show that was a cross between LOST and that Hanks movie the TERMINAL and that we had actually all died on the airplane but instead of being trapped on an island in the south pacific, we were stuck in an airplane terminal waiting for our luggage for all of eternity. I'd probably deserve it.

The next flight home was immensely worse. I was seated next to a fat old man who only moved a few times to lift his butt cheeks in my direction and release smelly farts. As if the rotting smell of an old man's colon wasn't enough, another pungent odor crept into my nose. The smell of the food they were cooking (yes COOKING) for first class members. You'd think it was a good smell? No. It was the worst thing ever. Worse than the old man's farts. Worse than the insides of a Tom-Tom. Worse than Condeleeza rice's breath. Oh it was so awful. The entire flight I was going insane. I couldn't take it. I was in hell. Pure hell. I asked the lady if there were any seats in the rear and she laughed. I should have fish-hooked her. I should have stuck my paws into her mouth and fish-hooked her. Uggh, that smell. It's actually just turning my stomach as I write about it. That's what you can expect if you ride on American Airlines. The worst smell ever created and a woman you want to fish-hook.

So what's the point? That flying blows. You better make damn sure that you are going somewhere worth it and you better fly Delta.

Besides the obvious other gripes I left out of this rant (annoying announcements, flight delays, security checkpoints....etc.), I hope I have helped you in other ways when you decide to fly next. Don't do it. Take a cab. Or a boat. Or a train. Just don't fly. Oh and one more thing:

"Thank you for choosing Weird crap my mom bought. We know you have a choice in blogs to read and we really enjoyed servicing you. Have a great day."

_{*With the exception of the one Delta flight that I slept through.}