Confessions of a Would-be Gourmand and Jetsetter

It seems that lately, every time I’ve been inspired to write – last being four months ago, it’s to complain about travel arrangements. I suppose this makes me sound like an embittered traveler, but in reality most of the times I fly, drive, and sleep without a hitch. That being said, even when there are poor situations that I must deal with, I do have preferred brands, and will rarely step away from those. I’m also, however, kind of a cheapskate.

Almost everyone knows that Southwest Air and American are my preferred brands. Between my stint a decade ago with AirTran providing me a seat under a broken vent (it’s not supposed to be raining on a plane) with a 10 hour delay in Atlanta and then losing my luggage, Delta / Northwest making me feel unwanted as a flyer, and Braniff… well, we can’t say much about the dear departed, can we? Still, these were preventable, and I try not to criticize about uncontrollable circumstances, but it does Put Me In A Mood when those circumstances interfere with my travel plans.

I arrived at Madison’s Truax Field yesterday with the hope, based on the rave reviews of my girlfriend, that my flight on Midwest (now Frontier) would be everything she said it would be. It didn’t help that when I got in line to check in, that I got in the regular line, and ended up waiting for 25 minutes almost because people kept walking in to the ‘express check-in’ lane and getting checked in before me, despite the gate agents having to ask multiple times for information, there being large groups of people checking in at once (A family of five, a group of three college students, two people with their disabled mother(?)) and then the desk agents finally realizing that maybe they should get to the people in the other line: myself and another single girl, who probably were the fastest check-ins while we were there!

Checking in was mostly hassle-free, I had no luggage checked or carry-on, and simply needed my boarding passes for Madison and my connection in Milwaukee. Of course, I was then informed of the weather delay. That was fine, it looked like I would still make it to Milwaukee on time for my connection and everything would be on the way to righting itself.

The plane ended up not being too late, and with a couple of pints at the Great Dane Brewing Co.’s airport location, the ~55 minute delay went fairly quickly. We boarded and lo and behold, my seat is broken. I didn’t notice at first that it was in a reclined position, but I did notice that the cushioning was broken and I’d have no spinal support for the 15 minute flight to Milwaukee. Then the flight attendant fussed at me to put my seat in its full upright position, and I tried, but it was broken too, and so I mentioned it to her before she moved on; she nodded and kept going through her cross-check. When she returned forward, I got an irritated “Sir, I asked you to put your seat up,” to which I replied, “Well, it’s still broken,” and she sighed loudly and moved forward, not saying anything else.

The 15 minute flight turned in to a 25 minute one, and my lower back was killing me as we circled around Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee. When we finally landed, I was just thrilled to stand up. After using the facilities I went to search for food. Concourse D at Mitchell, which I’m unaccustomed to, has a Pizzeria Uno – which was out of pizza, and a Chilli’s Too, which had a 45 minute wait. Given that my connection was now 35 minutes away, obviously that was a no go. The coffee shop was out of everything except 5 boxed salads and some muffins, and so I ended up getting a wrap and a bottle of water off of a little food cart.

I sat down at the Midwest/Frontier gate and immediately noticed four gate agents buzzing around. Given that I fly – a lot – seeing four gate agents that active, with two of them on the phone and the two others looking agitated is enough to make a wary traveler take notice. What to my overactive ears did arrive, but the sound of a voice saying “There’s no crew for the plane.”

Yeah. Well. Not too bad. We boarded about 10 minutes late, and given that I had no baggage at all, I did okay for boarding. All passengers who had no overhead storage items were invited to board first, and thus I did. I started back in on the book I brought, and was fine, until I noticed that in front of me sat two children, and two nearly empty bottles of mountain dew. Oh yes, some of you know what that means, and are probably a little terrified of what was to happen. Worry not, my friends, I am here to write this and was not detained by airport police or the TSA for felonious assault of a minor and his or her inept parent.

The obnoxious yelling began shortly before take-off, and the body slamming the seats soon thereafter. I tried putting my headphones in – fairly good ones, mind you, that keep out about 90% of noise. A little Miles Davis and my book and I could ignore the situation – except that I still had my wrap to eat and my water to drink. After take-off I waited a bit hoping the children would calm down, but there was no chance of that. The mother of these two children, when the beverage service came by, allowed them to order MORE caffeinated soda.

The flopping and yelling got worse. My wrap was almost knocked off my tray table and my water bottle was, twice. The flight attendant was catering to these kids, and barely noticed me. I finally asked if they had any scotch on board, and they only had Chivas Regal (or as the she flight attendant said, “shee-vaz”) so I ended up with a G&T. Can you guess what was next? Yes! The can of tonic, after it had been opened, had nearly bounced off the tray table due to the screaming, slamming children.

I finally got so fed up that after I was able to dispose of my trash, I racked the tray up and locked it in place hard enough to rock the row in front of me and get the kids to stop for a minute and look at me, and earn a glare from their mother, whom had not been doing anything to handle her children. It also earned me a word from the flight attendant saying that the trays did not need to be used in such a manner. I do think daggers came out of my eyes at the woman at that very moment, which the mother must have also seen because within five minutes, she had swiched places with one of the children and things settled down. Too bad it was 30 minutes before the flight was over.

I know flight attendants are primarily trained for cabin safety; it’s what they drill for, and their primary role – they’re safety officers first, servers/cocktail waitstaff second. I’ve seen them intervene when children are exceptionally obnoxious and unruly before, because it is not safe! So why did I get chided after 2 hours of slowly losing my patience? I have no idea. I guess it worked though.

Oh, and the final insult? I don’t know about those cookies that everyone raves about, but mine tasted like cardboard. Warm cardboard, mind you, but still cardboard.

With all this being said, I won’t choose to fly Frontier/Midwest again; I’m not at fault for the broken equipment on the aircraft, and I refused to be penalized for being trapped in a closed environment with children run amok to the point where things are being spilled on me, and then treated like it’s my fault. I’d sooner fly Delta, and that’s saying something for me.