Departure day was here and I was ready!
I get to the airport early as usual to beg for an isle seat with my 'extra leg room' ticket. And it's a good thing too because they had me down for a window seat. No. No. No. No. No. Cannot do that. They eventually gave me an isle seat so all was well.
I go through Check Point Charlie and head up to the KLM/VA buy in lounge and was hit with this:
Now what do I do? I'm relegated to being forced to eat airport food with the common riff-raff. GAG!
Now I've always been a proponent of pay-in lounges, and here is the proof.
This is a 15 dollar adult beverage. 15!!!
So, to have a crappy ass salad and two adult beverages, I have spent 50 bucks. No kidding.
And without the benefit of snagging large bottles of water for hydrating on the plane or pocketing tiny cheeses for consumption later.
Not to mention free wi-fi and quiet from the rest of the germ-spreading populace meandering through LAX.
Even so, being the trooper that I am, I soldiered on, eventually sitting at the gate and crawling on board the aircraft with the rest of the peons.
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| Crappy Ass LAX gate chairs. |
We had barely loaded in to the damn thing, when you guessed it:
SONOFABITCHINGRATBASTARDWHYINGODSNAMEDOTHEYLETTHESETHINGSONTHEDAMNPLANE?WHY?WHY?WHY?
And I mean I was close. That close. Close enough to reach out and stab the mother in the throat. Needless to say if you have small children I am not the relative you want to invite on a family holiday. Or birthday party. I hate birthday parties.Whatever the case, the thing started up before liftoff and after liftoff the flight crew took their damn sweet time with the friggin' welcome beverage. Another argument for lounges... my mind was not NEARLY numb enough to deal with this crap.
Finally. I got my welcome beverage, and with vodka, thank you very much. I think it was an orange juice blend. And not nearly large or strong enough.
Now I don't know if VA changed their policy on when to serve the meal or if the howler monkey made time stand still, but hours later, HOURS, I finally got my meal. Behold Beef something with mushrooms!
Was it edible? Well, I ate it and didn't die, so I suppose it was.
For desert, VA is now serving goo. I'm not even kidding about that. It's goo.
This particular goo was key lime flavored. Not too bad, but nothing that I would look forward to. With it I got a small cup of water. How generous. Please see above my continued argument for lounges.
Throughout the flight, I did my best to try to sleep, but wasn't really allowed to since the student next to me was really, really excited about spending a semester abroad. So yeah, I got to talk to him whilst having homicidal fantasies about silencing the recalcitrant noisemaker and sub par parents in the next row. The guy by the window turned his back and slept. Lucky bastard.
Hours and hours and hours later we were given the standard VA brekki which I promptly gave to the student, but downed my coffee.
Eventually, after about a year of screaming brat and not nearly enough liquor, we landed. THANK GOD! I didn't have any checked baggage, so I was able to exit the aircraft, walk the mile and a half through to immigration.
Thank God for ebooks, that's all I can say. THANK GOD!
Here we come to the end of departure day.
