Travelaudacity

So this post is supposed to be a travel rant. I just want to say this. I am loopy on cold medication. Oh I know… put that up there with the rest of the excuses for either writing a bad blog or wanting to get extreme credit for writing a good blog, like…..There’s something in my eye, my dog keeps humping my leg, I’m stuck in a snow bank, too many creditors are calling my home at once, I have plantar fasciitis, my coffee maker is broken, I have writer’s block, I don’t speak English, I’m at work, my humidifier is making the room to humid, I’m drunk, my Ipod keeps playing the Pet Shop Boys, my baby is drooling on my face, last night’s pork was overcooked, they might have used asbestos during the construction of my parent’s house, I have emotional problems, there’s a jolly rancher stuck to the couch cushion, I have kidney stones, my life sucks and I’m too depressed to write, my life’s amazing and now I have nothing compelling to write about, I have a stain on my new shirt, I’m being held back in life because my pre-school teacher never believed in me, I have a hang nail on the ring finger equivalent of my toes, I wanna go outside and play, the gym that I’ve never been to wants me to come in for a fitness assessment….. today!!!!!! All this and I still managed to get a blog off??? That’s damn near heroic!! OK, this is getting out of hand. Let me start over.

Travelaudacity is supposed to be like travelocity, but since I’m trying to tell you bad things about travelling, I put audacity instead of ocity, but then I wasn’t sure if you’d get it, so I’m explaining it, but then if I have to explain it, it probably wasn’t worth saying, but if it was worth saying, and you did get the ‘wordplay’, then I’ve probably completely ruined it by explaining it, and I should have just shown confidence in it (because I have this thing about combining two concepts in the same word like “Blintrog” which was the first blog I ever wrote, and it was like an Intro and a Blog, but I combined the two to make Blintrog… get it???), but I don’t know if this concept was strong enough, and I feel insecure about it, and when I’m insecure, I overexplain. NOT TO MENTION when I looked up the spelling of audacity, I noticed that one of the definitions was the willingness to take bold risks which is actually a pretty cool personality trait, but I of course was referring to the definition that indicated rude or disrespectful behaviour, just in case you weren’t 100% clear about what Travelaudacity was supposed to be about. OK, this is getting out of hand. Let me start over.

I had to fly on Delta Airlines last week. I wanted to bring a bag. A real bag, like luggage. Not just a carry-on. Not a full-on suitcase disguised as a carry-on either which (if I didn’t just say it in a recent blog) is the most obnoxious thing going. I wanted to check a bag. This costs $25. I know it used to be free back in the day, but that’s not my rant. (Although it could be my rant because if they didn’t charge $25, then more people would check their bags, and then they wouldn’t stuff them into overhead compartments, and then dislodge a plastic thingy when they tried to get it out, and nearly poke my friggin eye out). I just wanted to let you my faithful readers know that when you pay $25 to check a bag with Delta, they give you what’s called an ‘excessive baggage’ ticket. I was gone for 5 (turned into 7 because of snow storm) days, and I brought one suitcase. I don’t think that is ‘excessive’. If I brought 4 suitcases, then you can give me an excessive baggage ticket, but one suitcase for a 5 days??? Not excessive. I would say it’s the ‘appropriate baggage’. I would have liked to get an ‘appropriate baggage’ ticket from Delta.

Have you ever booked travel and noticed that a connecting flight is generally cheaper than a direct flight? I’ve had this explained to me by numerous people and I still can’t wrap my head around it. I’m no genius!! Argue it all you want…..(No seriously I’d love to have the argument with you where you try to convince me that I’m a genius, and I humbly try to talk you down like ‘no no… not a genius…’ please, can we do that argument next time I see you?) but I do know a tiny bit about business. I’m not going to oversell how much I know about it, but most of my adult life, I’ve been involved in business on some level with varying degrees of success peppered with wildly high levels of failure. All that being said, HOW THE FUCK CAN RIDING ON 2 AIRPLANES BE CHEAPER THAN RIDING ON 1 AIRPLANE???? There are roughly double the costs. Double the employees, double the fuel, double the mechanics making sure it’s running smoothly, double the flight attendants, double the bits and bites, double the pilots, double the guys that take our ‘excessive baggage’ from one plane and put it on another. There’s no way you can tell me that the costs of having me take a connecting flight is cheaper than me taking a direct flight (when one is available). I think that’s why some of these airlines are struggling. They fail to comprehend the basic mathematics behind their business. They should be encouraging people to take direct flights!! Do you know how much time and energy they waste on re-booking passengers that miss their connectors?? The stupidity of it all amazes me continuously.

Happy Travels!

About Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

I'm a music lover, an enthusiast, a diaper changer, an opinion sharer, a chicken wing consumer, a procrastinating couch sitter, an actor, a business professional, a foodie, an above average dresser, and blogger at www.thoughtsandrantsinjoggingpants.com View all posts by Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

13 responses to “Travelaudacity

  • chlost

    Have you used all of those excuses, or are you saving them just in case they are needed? Your first mistake was in “choosing Delta”-as in “Thank you for choosing Delta!”. As someone who has flown it several times, I will say that I have acknowledged my error in doing so,and will do almost anything to avoid using that airline….even taking a connecting flight if necessary!

  • C

    I think the airlines charge less for connecting flights because they need to consolidate their operations; most people know going in that it’s not necessarily faster or more convenient to travel this way but if it’s cheaper, they might go for it. It makes more sense for them to pick up passengers at a bigger hub and fly a full plane to carry on to a final destination rather than two half-full direct flights. They use smaller planes for connecting flights as well, that’s how they minimize the carbon footprint..
    You can probably say we fell for that with our recent trip but neither of us had done it so we thought we’d give it a try; the savings couldn’t be passed up.

  • TW Juras

    There’s gotta be a way to use your skills to come up with names for a living. Travelaudacity!. You should definitely have the confidence to not explain it.

  • Auntie Pest

    How could you write this today, knowing that your Mom will be on a direct flight traveling with 1 suitcase? She may decide to stay here forever. Where would you be then?

  • Ombretta D

    Friend, is it true that they banned the word “pasta” from Italian restaurants’ menus in Quebec? I read about it on huffpost Canada. I wonder if there’s going to be an international spaghetti incident.

    • Thoughts and Rants in Jogging Pants

      I couldn’t tell you. Stranger things have happened in Quebec though. It wouldn’t surprise me. There are lots of useful things that the ‘powers that be’ could be doing with their time. Someone obviously feels this is important. They’re very sensitive about language over there.

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