Yay! - or maybe not :-(Follow

A full year's worth. I won't bore you with the details.

Let's just say they keep a case of lube on hand just for me.

On my flight to Australia from LA, they over-booked the coach seats. I had some rude *** get all pissy with me for "being in my seat." Once the stewardess came over to straighten things out, they realized what the problem was. And being as the other guy was also a rude *** to the stewardess, and she found out that I was military, she escorted me up to First Class whilst I giggled like a school girl at the fact that

1. She was super hot, and was holding my arm pressed against her bewbs.
2. The jackass had smoke coming out his ears that I got the upgrade and he got told to sit down and shut up.

I never had any problem with lost luggage or anything, thankfully.

I try and gravitate to the quieter, smaller airports. The staff is friendlier and they're spacious and cleaner.

Houston, on the other hand, was a dump. I'll die happy if I never have to go there again.

I went to Hong Kong as a kid to perform in a children's chorus festival. We flew back through Japan and the plane slid off the runway when we were landing.

A lot of people started to get really nervous and panic and so our director had us sing some songs to calm people down. I never quite grasped the levity of the situation - I was just pissed that the plane was stuck for so long that we had to spend the night in Japan.

I've been fairly lucky when it comes to the airlines. Only issue I ever had was Delta changing a gate number with 5 minutes to spare to get on the plane for a transfer, and it was on the exact opposite side of the airport. Not too big of a deal, except I had a 2 yr old, a 20lb car seat and a suitcase I had to carry by myself. My mother, who was with me at the time, grabbed her suitcase, my sons blankey, and his portacrib. That must have been quite the site for others

Bad experiences? Sure!

A couple of weeks ago, i went to catch up with my wife and nipper in kent where she was visiting her family.

After arriving in Heathrow, I collected my stuff, and cruised thru arrivals, and then out onto the road outside where i waited for my wife to arrive. theres a massive traffic jam, which is what engerland is made of these days. She called and said Im a couple o minutes away.

So there i am waiting on the side of the road for her, when this bloke dressed as a stormtrooper, with a helmet and body armour and a gun (FFS!) marches over and asks me what Im doing standing around there for. I say that i'm waiting for a lift. He says to me "Not there you're not! this is a high risk zone and you are a presenting a risk to security". I **** you not. Those were his words. I pointed out that I was in a drop off zone designed for the purpose of drop off/pick up sort of behaviour, and he then sAid something about recent terrorist activity and new regulations blah blah. I was about to argue with him some more when wifey shows up and I load my stuff and got in her car and off we went.not a bad experience as such, but a sign of things to come.

2 and a bit weeks later, we've had a fill of pub lunches, queuing for everything, and Tony Bleh, (tho I gotta say Arn't the drugs cheap in england these days!!) we are back at heathrow to fly back home.

After standing in a queue for an hour to check in, (always fun with an 8 month old) off we went to departures. More queuing. this time for security. now we've been careful to not bring liquids and creams because there are signs telling you that toothpaste and wotnot can be turned into a bomb, and as such can't be taken on a plane. So we get to the front of the queue, where everything goes thru an x-ray machine. then we take off our shoes and get patted down, and then go and try and collect our hand luggage. Only to find some gormless pillock rifling thru the babies bag. the one with his nappies and things in it. Said pillock triumphantly holds up half a dozen tubs of baby food. Its a nice organic one, all in its original boxes, sealed with a foil lid. Ash lurves them.

"whats in these?" he says. "Baby food", my wife answers.
"These are prohibited" he says. "Its baby food" I repeat.
"Its a security risk". he says. ""Dont talk rubbish, its food for the baby" I said holding the baby up for him.
"Its a prohibited substance, I am confiscating it." he says.
"You're a paranoid git I said. (it was hot, an I was getting tetchy) why are you not examining my video cam/ipod/still cam/two mobile phones. they are much easier to make a bomb out of". Well! You can imagine!!
15 Minutes later he's searched everything, tested the electronic stuff, and confiscated the babies food . ****.
poor lil Ash had to eat airline goop all the way home, in between suckin on a bewb.

now I know that certain people here will say "serves you right for getting tetchy". but to those people, I say GFY.

I was under the impression that the 'terrorists' hate us for our freedom. It would seem that the terrorists are winning the T.W.A.T. because if we are now at a stage of paranoia that prohibits us taking toothpaste onto a plane, and gives uneducated fuckwits like that moran the right to confiscate the food from my baby, then we should all give up and surrender right here and now.

Anyway, we're back in NZ now. The Immigration official said "Kia Ora, Welcome home", after checking our pp's.
yup! Its good to be home.

That only applies to kids who aren't dressed as devils.

Edited, Sep 18th 2006 at 8:27pm EDT by Pikko

Elvis stole your luggage? Sweet!

Bad flights… let’s start with the most recent.

Last month, I flew to Chicago on Southwest airlines. On the flight to Chicago, I get my seat early, as I’m in the first boarding group, one of the people in the last group to board is a guy carrying an infant, and takes the vacant seats next to me. The weird thing is that its either not his kid, or it’s a Me, Myself and Irene thing, if you know what I mean. Its not that I have anything against kids, but four hours of listening to an infant scream, will make anyone want to strangle a kid.

The return flight from Chicago was almost as fun, again a Southwest flight. This time I’m is the second boarding group. As I’m waiting to board I hear a father and son talking, and it becomes apparent that the son is mentally challenged. I don’t look at them, as I don’t want to be rude and such, as the father has probably had people staring at his son since the day he was born. They board early as the son has a handicap, and just as luck would have it, I choose a seat two rows ahead of said father and son. As soon as we start taxing to the runway, the father and son start playing this game. Where the son shouts something and the father repeats it. The things that the son is shouting make no sense at all, as a guess the son had a mild form of Tourette’s disease, four hours of bliss again.

The prior trip that is worth mentioning here was a trip taking a client to LasVegas for a vendor’s show. On the return flight, we are sitting in the emergency exit rows above the wings, in seats that face the rear of the plane. After we were seated, two women take the seats across from us, and they are plowed. As they are talking, we find out that one of them is terrified of flying, and that’s why they got plowed. Ten minutes into the flight, we hit some turbulence, and the girl afraid of flying starts to get sick. All of us in that row start searching for barf bags. As luck would have it, there aren’t any on our row. By the time we get her one, it’s a little too late, and she’s wearing some of it, and we spent the rest of the flight enjoying that lovely aroma. Did I mention that I can stand anything, without getting queasy, except that smell?

Long enough post for now, and that doesn’t cover the flight out of Dallas when a bird flew in one of the engines during takeoff – Wee!

When my family and I went to Italy two years ago, our baggage somehow ended up in Brussels. It got to us two days later, and we were all very grateful (and smelly).

Another update

The handle has been wrenched from the suitcase and the combination lock mangled.

There's a wee note inside the case from The Dept of Homeland Security (I paraphrase):



On the plus side, my Swedish ***** Enlarger is intact

That's good.