Goin to New York City / I do believe I’ve had e-nough

Internets, I’ve taken my last trip on Continental Airlines.

The Gleemonex family got back Monday night from a trip to the East Coast for the wedding of our most beloved Jew, who is one of the world’s true good guys and possibly the most irreverent person I’ve ever met (in college, proofreading an assignment for him for a Core class, I had to insist, repeatedly, that one cannot refer to Luciano Pavarotti as “a talentless, washed-up old gasbag” in a formal paper critiquing a live performance, even if it was in fact true – we have to use different words to convey the same meaning, son). The wedding was fab, the Berkshires lovely, etc. etc. etc.

However. Continental Motherfucking Airlines.

They beat other airlines’ prices by a good $150 per ticket into Newark -- their hub -- so, stupidly, I booked the flights through them. And I’ve learned an important lesson: You get what you pay for.

--Delays: 1:45 outbound on the redeye, 2:30 inbound on a weekday midafternoon. Unacceptable generally, but with a baby, you feel every single minute of the delay. Made me acutely aware of the shoddiness of their management.

--Bass-ackward boarding: no “travelers with children” pre-boarding (and listen, non-parents: this isn’t an unfair perk for the childed – trust me, you want me to pre-board with my kid and all our shit and get settled before you get on, you freewheeling magazine-reading iPod-listening son of a bitch); no back-to-front boarding (on the way out, it was a total free-for all with no rows called, period), with the consequent clusterfuck in re: overhead bin space that that implies; flight attendants who just stood there and watched the whole bovine struggle (and one who actively encouraged TWO different people to park their shit so that it was blocking emergency equipment, then acted surprised and innocent when another attendant nixed that and made them gate-check the goddamn bags like they should’ve done in the first fucking place, which gate-checking delayed us further); etc.

--“Unscheduled maintenance issues” causing delays both ways, which could have been minimized if Continental didn’t have their heads up their asses (and by the way: listen, Mister Chatty-Panties Pilot, I can’t take Ativan because I’m breastfeeding – could you shut your cakehole about “unscheduled maintenance issues, more serious than we thought”?? Lie, motherfucker, lie. I don’t care what you say, just don’t say THAT).

--Bragging about “the youngest fleet in the industry,” when I can plainly see a sealed-up ashtray in the outside of the lavatory door – haven’t flights been smoke-free since like nineteen-eighty-fucking-two?

--Both flights waaay overbooked, causing more delay while they tried to entice people with $400 vouchers for a future flight … on Continental.

So: fuck ‘em. Goodbye, shitheads.

Parting thoughts:

1) The 6’2” Mr. Gleemonex would like me to point out the crazymaking asshattedness of reclining one’s seat in fucking coach class (done), and I think it worth noting that whoever’s in the seat in front of him always, ALWAYS reclines, while the one in front of 5’5” me almost never does. Shatner’s First Law of Aerodynamics.

2) Who knew so many people would line up to take dumps in an airplane lavatory? People must love it a real lot. We kept thinking the baby needed a diaper change, but no. It was the lav. Dump after dump after dump. Shatner’s Second Law of Aerodynamics.