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February 18, 2006

airline to heaven

an open letter to people who travel southwest airlines:

the good people at southwest have given each of us the opportunity to sit wherever we like on their flights in and around the continental u.s. this in addition to their competitively priced fares make southwest an appealing choice whenever one chooses to travel. you can now afford to bring the children, the dog, the cat - what the hell? it's cheap.

the concept is simple enough. go online 24 hours before your flight and you can print off your boarding pass and based on your order in the process you are placed in either group a, b, or c. and much like the alphabetical progression suggests, passengers board according to their group number. this implies freedom to not only move about the country but also the freedom to sit in a particular section of the plane if you so desire. but here is the part of the process that troubles me so much.

people will begin forming lines by groups an hour before the scheduled departure time. as i sat in chicago's midway airport yesterday i watched as folks began lining up at 3:30 (our flight was at 5:20). i sat there amazed and furious. why do people do this? it creates congestion everywhere - a mass of luggage and bodies; pizza boxes and whatnot. it makes no sense to me at all. the plane didn't board until 5:30 which means those poor bastards stood in line for 2 hours.

why do people do this? especially people in group a? if you are in group a on a southwest flight and you get in line for a seat two hours early you're just an asshole. i'm sorry but you really are. i mean seriously, you are in the first group. they aren't going to run out of seats. even if you are travelling with other of people and you get on the plane at the very end of group a there will still be open rows so that you and your pals can sit together - after you have selfishly packed everything you possibly can into the overhead bins forcing the poor saps in group c to have to check their carry ons of course.

the same concept applies (to a slightly lesser extent) to folks in group b. for example, i was the last person in group b to get on the airplane last night. the flight was completely full and there were still three rows completely wide open. granted, those rows were in the back of the plane but so what? there's really nothing to see in the front. it's not a rock concert. and even if it were the very front row is rarely the b.e.s.t. place to be.

also, if you are the last person in the group to board you have a choice who you sit next to. this way you aren't sitting there in a panic hoping the creepy guy in group c won't see the empty seat next to you. and you can choose whether or not you want to leave that middle seat open knowing full well that a larger person will want to sit there which results in the sort of physical contact you wouldn't even feel comfortable with on a third date.

for this reason i think group c might be the best group after all, you get to be the jerk watching the look of dread on people's faces as you approach their row. you know, that please do not sit here look. to which you simply shrug your shoulders and squeeze your way in. fifteen minutes after take off you insist that you have to go to the bathroom and as soon as you make your way into the aisle confess that you don't have to go anymore. that's what i would do anyway. i would also spend the entire flight in the crash position
you know, just in case.

i suppose i shouldn't let this bother me so much. after all, the philosophy here is that people have the freedom to do as they please. but i don't want to have to see it happening right in front of me. all the pushing and shoving and the rowdy children with their miserable parents. it really is so much nicer if everyone sits quietly and waits. every time i watch the dreaded lines begin to form i secretly wish for a gate change so i can laugh in the faces all those people who just had to be at the front of the line. that would be awesome.

Posted by young_christopher at 1:43 PM | TrackBack

February 11, 2006

i'm always in love

so here we are again on the cusp of yet another valentines day. which, commercialization aside is always a time of reflection for me. much more so than new years. in fact you might even say that my year doesn't officialy begin until february 15th - which of course makes someone like me no fun at all when it comes to new years eve parties. because while everyone else is partaking of whatever libations happen to be easily accessible i'm in the over stuffed chair panicking because i'm running out of time to find the love of my life - or at least a sustainable relationship that can last me until the flowers die.

currently i have three days left and nary a prospect in sight. it's not something that i'm really freaking out about. much. it's just that the years are slipping by and now i'm worried that i can't commit. well that can't be true because it really makes me sound like such a cliche. and that's no good at all. because i'm not a cliche - well i might be a cliche but i'm my own cliche - i'm a cul de sac extremely well rounded but going nowhere. and it's not that i can't commit because i'm definitely an all or nothing type of person.

i mean when i started dating karen in the 3rd grade i was desparately commited to her and had every intention that we would spend the rest of our lives together. sadly, we grew apart as young lovers often do and i've spent the rest of my life wondering where things went wrong. okay, maybe not the rest of my life but it bothered me up through grade 4 when i left that school.

but i'll willingly confess here and now before all that i may have peaked romantically at the age of 9. because that was the first and the last romantic relationship i participated in. why? i'm not really sure. people tell me it's complicated - or rather that my ideas about it are complicated and i suppose this is true. because on one level it's the one thing that i want more than anything else - at the same time i'm completely indifferent to the whole process. how can these two ideas coexist within the same being you ask?because i am an enigma.

also, i worry that if i ever find my way into the arms of my true lover what will happen to all of this romantic angst that i've carried with me through the years? i mean is it possible to be in a happy commited relationship and still write songs of love, loss, and regret? if i fell head over heels with the woman of my dreams what would become of the album of one thousand songs and counting? somewhow jeff tweedy has managed to pull it off but i'm not sure if i am ready to take that chance yet - and no one is really sure how his wife feels about all of that. but still i'm finding it nearly impossible to hold out much longer. many of my friends are married now and i'm not and i can tell that they are judging me every second of the day...and i cannot bear the peer pressure. i've forgotten what i'd set out to say here.

i think it was just this: valentines day is right around the bend and i don't even have a crush on anyone at the moment. well, not a realistic crush anyway. there was this dark haired girl in the orlando airport yesterday - she was quite stunning and i would have dropped to one knee and proposed had i not been in danger of missing my flight - and also she was wearing a coat. indoors. in florida. it was a badass coat and she was totally rocking the black pumas that i'm currently in love with but still...it's not like it really matters getting myself all worked up. after all, i'll be bundled up in a hotel room in chicago when the big day comes all panicky hoping against hope that the flowers i ordered are delivered to their respective destinations on time.

and the funny thing is, i really used to be that guy. with cards and candy at the ready - love letters, poetry - it didn't matter if i really liked the girl or not. i still have some of that left in me i suppose - but i find it getting harder to put forth the effort...because why should i have to explain why i bought you expensive jewelry and body chocolate? why does it have to mean something? it's so exhausting!

Posted by young_christopher at 3:02 PM | TrackBack

February 8, 2006

Big River Essence

For the past three years, I've spent my Mondays through Fridays 9:00 to 5:00 behind a desk ( thankfully not in a cube, but rather a work station) working in finances and have officially reached the point of complete burn-out. The job is so easy that if my 3 co-workers were gone and I had to take on their responsibilites in addition to my own, I could still probably get it done in a day without sacrificing the occassional perusal of TWoP recaps and forums. The office is stealing my essence ala The Dark Crystal, but there is an end in sight. My husband will be an associate at a mid-sized firm here in Boston (I'm in Atlblogs because of my co-writers if you were wondering), and I will be able to quit. I will have the opportunity to do whatever I want, and that? is terrifying. I will probably end up going into graphic design because I think I'm okay at art and could manage to do well. I would be a part time student, maybe and get a job at a little cafe or something. Which brings me to my point at last: I miss waiting tables.

It's a little crazy, but I think I've romanticized all my six years in the industry. I remember being so ready to get the hell out of restaurants and get things like paid vacations, weekends off, holidays off, and the ability to watch prime time television (to which I am now enslaved). But after gaining all these things at the cost of creativity and my soul, I realize that the rush and the people and the flirting (yeah I flirted to up my tip, so what?) and gossiping and frantic smoke break because thank God everyone is settled for 5 damn minutes and the complaining about management and the drinks in the bar after work...it was all so energizing. And I was good at it. No matter how crappy my tips were (despite giving the best service ever), or how many little shitty kids I had at my tables, I loved it and felt proud of myself at the end of every night. I worked at Big River in Chattanooga, TN during my senior year at Covenant College. Academics were never my cup of tea, having always been a C/B student (except in art classes I got A's), and going to work after classes was a like a balm to the frustration I felt because maybe I couldn't remember what the hell we talked about in Medieval Woman Writers, but damn it, I could balance 6 tables, sidework, demanding jerks, strung out co-workers, and more without skipping a beat or letting my fantastic fake smile slip.

I miss the lingo, too, and recently forgot what the abbreviation for a certain job at Big River was. It's highly distressing. A friend that worked at Sticky Fingers down the road, also blanked when I asked him (because they had the same thing). And this is actually why I began writing today: If anyone out there knows what it was when you would work in the kitchen opposite the cooks, pull the tickets, garnish the meals and group them together to send out, please respond because I couldn't even Google it and what the hell do you do when you can't Google something! Panic, that's what! I think there was a Q involved? Thank you.

I would never go back to that kind of establishment. I like my days off and weekends and primetime television far too much, but if I could find a cute little joint to kick around in part-time? That would be nice.

Posted by heidi at 12:58 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack