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Dear Delta,
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10/31/2006
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I'm not sure to whom this should be addressed, so I'll just treat it like "Delta" is a guy who happens to be an airline.
I have been flying with you since I was a wee chap, and have found it to be mostly agreeable. Planes seem to work okay, no one died, etc. Now I am all grown up and flying frequently for business. While some business travelers are complete bitches about which seat they get, how hot or cold the cabin is, the size of the blankets, and the taste of the food, I assure you that I am not one of them. I don't care if you put me in seat 93L right between the engine and the bathroom for my trip to Germany. I don't even care if said seat doesn't recline, you run out of food, and the ceiling nozzle is stuck on full blast and jet fuel is shooting out of it. Years of flying standby have taught me that I can handle almost anything for nine hours.
I guess I'm just not a consumer of the niceties on airplanes - in the past four weeks I have spent about 45 hours in your aircraft. During those six flights I drank one beer, two glasses of water (one of which I went to the galley to ask for so as not to bother the attendants), and I used the bathroom three times. I didn't eat any meals because you were running low on rations (and I like to think that you poisoned mine and it might go to the screaming 3 year old bastard three rows ahead of me), and I gave my peanuts to the huge, steaming pile of goo seated next to me because she treated them like they were currency over in Fatland or wherever she was from.
What I'm saying is that I ask precious little of you when I buy my ticket. I do, however, have one non-negotiable. That would be the AC power port located under each seat on most of your aircraft. If it is there, it should be working.
Being on an airplane offers me the rarest of opportunities; no one can reach me via email or phone, and I have several hours to fart around on my computer. Maybe I want to go through some photographs. Perhaps I want to try out some new software. Maybe I want to dork out with a video game. Or maybe I have already seen "The Breakup" on every flight since August and would rather eat my own testicles than watch Jennifer Anniston and Brad Vaughn's witty fucking banter again. Maybe if I had power for my computer I could sit quietly with my headphones on and enjoy the flight with the diversion of my choice.
Yes, I can use the battery on my computer. For about an hour. And yes, I have also sat through the other entertainment choice, "X-Man: the reckoning" or whatever they call that horrible shitmop of a movie on your westbound flights. So don't start with me, Delta.
On each and every flight I have taken, the aircraft was equipped with power ports, so I eagerly packed my adapter and settled in for a few precious hours of 547 mph solitude. Imagine The sheer joy I felt when I plugged my computer in and saw the green light come on. I happily clicked and navigated my way through some crazy fantasy land as Kodor, avenger of righteousness and reader of emails until it was time to taxi out. Once airborne, it was safe to plug in again, but this time there was no power.
"Excuse me, Miss Flight attendant? The power doesn't seem to be on. Would you mind checking on that if you have a chance?"
"Power?"
"Yes Ma'am. The power port under my seat" *pointing*
"We don't have power ports."
"I have my finger on it and I used it ten minutes ago, so...yeah...could you just check for me?"
"I guess they're broken"
"Awesome. Thanks so much for all of your help." *dammitdammitdammit*
As it turned out, the power had magically gone out on my seat and a few seats around me. Coincidentally, that has happened on every flight I have been on since that day. I don't even use my boarding card anymore. I just walk down the aisle until I see the seat without the green light indicating a functional power port. Seriously, three flights on entirely different aircraft and my row is the one place on the plane without electricity EVERY TIME.
As I approach the United States after a week overseas, I sit in seat 57G hurriedly typing this letter, across the aisle from the bathroom. I had no idea that the Kazakstani national fiber-eating team had chartered most of the seats on this plane, but like I said, I can sit through anything. The frequent smell of rotting bowels coupled with my seat being fixed upright has kept me from the brief release of slumber, and if I could have one wish right now it would be a working power port so I could finish this letter. But alas, the battery light is blinking and I must sign off bef
 Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 3:49 PM |
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Platinum Grill, Y'all
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10/24/2006
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I'm 34 years old now.
In exactly 357 days I will be able to legally run for President. Now I just have to figure out how to campaign with $284.21 (which is all of the campaign money I have been able to secure to this point).
I came home on my birthday to find the Skirt had gotten there before me. Even after re-keying the locks, she can still somehow come in to deposit toiletries in and around the sinkular area of my bathroom. (When I was single, the bathroom counter had one item on it- a faucet. Now it has cranberry face mask, soy flower spleen scrub, pomegranate wattle butter, hairbrushes, and a half-inch thick coating of hairspray that is in no way limited to the sink. It is stuff she uses to ensure that she always smells like French toast and looks hotter than a Ferrari in the projects, so I let it slide.)
My initial reaction was abject glee, as I smelled the distinct aroma that can only be a combination of dryer sheets, pine-scented floor cleaner, dishwasher detergent, and Windex. Could it be that the constant ridicule and occasional beatings had finally paid off and she started cleaning my house for me like a good woman? I met her eyes with a brief look of approval, as that is all the reward she would crave for a job well done.
Then I remembered that it was Tuesday and that is the day that the Colombian Cleaning Cartel (Rinaldo and his wife Maria) comes to make my house spic and span.
No pun intended.
So not only was the Skirt not responsible, I now owed money to the cleaning company.
Then I saw it. Actually I don't know how I missed it- a box about half the size of my couch with a cat sleeping on top of it. The box said "Weber Performer", so I knew that she had either bought herself a new boyfriend, or my grilling dreams had come true. I figured it was the latter, but I settled into a fighting stance and did a few quick stretches just in case.
About a year ago I was idly looking at grills, pretty much trying to invent a reason to buy one, when I spotted the Weber Performer and was forever changed. I grill exclusively with natural charcoal instead of gas because it tastes about 3000% better (ask anyone who has wrapped their lickin' strip around one of my awesomeburgers how they liked their 72-hour orgasm) and I am not a terrorist or a pussy. Seriously, if you need a computer-controlled thermostat to keep your food at the right temperature and a cute little side burner to warm your vagina fondue, walk away from the meat fork and find something better suited for you - like wearing dresses and making scrapbooks. The grill has become little more than a shameful accessory in your web of lies.
The only complaint I have about charcoal is that is can be a bitch to light.
Lighter fluid is absolutely out of the question unless you like hexamine flavored steaks. I have been known to light my coals with a blowtorch (extreme heat may make natural lump charcoal explode into tiny burning fragments. It feels sort of like when grease gets too hot and tiny pain particles hit your arms, except they are on your face too and they burn for a longer time), some kind of hippie natural lighting stick (which did as good a job not killing endangered owls as it did not lighting my coals), and usually a paper towel soaked in vegetable oil. The problem with most of it is that it leaves some kind of residual funk behind.
Enter the Weber Performer. It has a small canister of clean-burning propane that fuels a burner beneath the coals just long enough to get them rockin' their mesquite goodness- then it's pure charculinary delight. Add to that the retractable coal bucket, multi-purpose thermometer, and little knobs on which to hang your grilling tackle, and you have me firing that bitch up at 7 am to make eggs and pancakes for everyone in the neighborhood.
You'll have to ask the skirt for specifics, but I did the "shaky hand to the face" thing that beauty pageant winners do, and I think I did the "passing out" thing that the most recent Miss Universe did. Best birthday present this whole year.
In short, it has been a pretty good few weeks for me. Two weeks in Hawaii with some of my favorite people (more on that when I finish going through the pictures...and oh, there are pictures), come home to a birthday, the grill that Jesus would use if he couldn't depend on his magic heat vision to cook his food, and a girlfriend who went to the trouble to remember my drooling over it, purchase it, and haul the beastly bastard to my house.
Life is good. Nay, never freaking better.
As I write this this, I am in London, so the box sits unopened and waiting for my return. It reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents bought me a pellet gun, but our cat wasn't going to have her kittens for another two weeks.
Dusty
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posted by Dusty at 3:51 PM |
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