THERE IS A GREMLIN ON THE WING. No, I kid. It’s just a Celica.

-

Dear Alaska Airlines,

Hi! It’s me, Geraldine. You might remember me from such notable trips as AA Flight #476, Seattle to L.A. (the one that was so bumpy, NO SNACKS WERE HANDED OUT, which turned out to be not that big a deal because I spent the evening throwing up, anyway) or last month’s AA Flight #12, Seattle to Boston, during which I could not stop farting (a.k.a., Stinks on a Plane) and also, I lost my camera.

Let me know if that thing turns up, okay? There are some photos on there that I want. In particular, several snapshots of a collage I made of Elvis Presley being eaten by a robotic T-Rex wearing a bow-tie. I used my copy of Alaska Airlines Magazine to create the masterpiece. After all, you said it was mine to keep (also, your editorial staff keeps ignoring my article pitches on how to conceal your farts on cross-country flights. Granted, I am clearly unqualified to speak on that topic.)

I have utterly lost my train of thought.

No, wait, I got it!

I wanted to say thank you. And also, to tell you guys to stop wasting the nice seats on me.

Here’s the deal. On my last flight, I was given seat 17A, the window seat in an exit row. My beloved was sitting across the aisle in 17Q or something like that (the alphabet has never been my strong suit).

As far as riding in coach goes (because let’s face it: people like me do not get upgraded. We embarrass the patricians), my seat was pretty swank. It’s got lots of legroom.

-

I mean, lots of legroom. The seat directly in front of 17A is missing, either intentionally, or as a result of an incident with the Hulk, or maybe the architect was just drunk. That happens sometimes, you know? How else can you explain Antonio Gaudi?

Structure on the top of one of Gaudi’s buildings in Barcelona. Out of context, it looks a wee bit naughty, no?

-

While this seat is highly desirable, it was utterly wasted on me. I’m 5’2″, which isn’t very tall to begin with, but on top of that, I have “disproportionately short legs.” That’s an actual quote from the woman who taught that spin class I went to once and only once (I was emotionally scarred. Also? Spinning is awful. It’s like torture, except that no matter how many secrets you spill, it won’t stop. After I screamed my social security and pin numbers for the fifth time, I was asked to leave).

I don’t even use the 3/4 of an inch of legroom that regular airplane seats have. Even after I shove my bag underneath the seat in front of me (nobody does that, by the way. I’ve been watching), I still have gobs of room. Sometimes, my feet don’t touch the floor. They just dangle, much the way a child’s would.

If it sounds like I’m bragging, it’s because I am, just a weensy bit. It’s not often that a girl with “disproportionately short legs” (seriously, I should get that trademarked) has a leg up on everyone else, you know?

Also, did you notice that pun I just made? Go back and read it again, if you missed it. It’s very clever.

So what did I do with all the space I had on my last flight? I tried slumping down in my seat and extending my legs as far as they would go, just so I could say that I tried to appreciate the gift given to me, but people started staring and pointing.

“What the hell is the girl in 17 A doing?” someone asked.

“I don’t know,” someone else replied. “I think she’s drunk. And she may have designed the plane.”

Also, my extra legroom meant that my bag was waaaay up ahead of me, making it very difficult to reach the cookie I had in there. I finally got to it after we landed, but by then Rand had seen it and I had to share with him.

Stupid matrimony.

I would have much rather had the aisle seat, since I have a weensy bladder and need to get up often, but the guy sitting there thought I was kidding when I said I had too much legroom, and LAUGHED OFF MY REQUEST TO SWAP SEATS.

So I sat there, with my gobs of unused legroom and my full bladder, and tried to think of other things, but then I started obsessively dwelling on the fact that I was in a exit row.

Officially, let me state that I don’t have a problem with sitting in that row (I have clicked many a button confirming this fact while checking in online). You can be damn sure that the second anything goes wrong on a plane, I will be out of my seat and ready to use my pillow as a flotation device. Sometimes I bring my regular pillows into the shower, just to practice.

It’s just that I’m not sure I should be the first person with access to the door in case of an emergency, you know? I’m worried I might jump the gun and try cranking open that sucker in the event of something minor, like when someone gets a paper cut on their copy of US Weekly, or when the beverage cart runs out of Bloody Mary mix.

Plus, I’ve heard that the door weighs 50 pounds. Occasionally, I’ve tried lifting 50 pounds at the gym, and I can definitely do it, but damn – that’s a lot of weight, you know? Sometimes when I’m working out, I have to inspire myself, so I start screaming stuff like, “Don’t worry, fellow passengers, I WILL SAVE YOU ALL,” while bench-pressing.

That gets me almost as many weird looks as the seat slumping I mentioned earlier.

Anywho, please give some thought to the points I made in this letter. I can’t really remember what they were, but it was probably something important.

Sincerely,

Geraldine

P.S. – Please consider handing out more of those Biscoff cookies. Those damn things are delicious.

It seems we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

I see this as largely your fault, of course. When you saw me quietly sleeping in my chair, you – for reasons that defy logic (Was it curiosity? Thoughtlessness? Demonic possession? I’m leaning towards the latter) – decided to shake the back of my seat vigorously until I woke up.

Now, I’m not one to claim I’m a heavy sleeper. I’ve been woken up by the ticking of a wrist watch before. But kid, I was out. I’d just spent days with my family, who conveniently live under the San Diego airport flight path in an uninsulated bungalow that shakes and trembles every time a plane screeches overhead. Not only will any sleep you get will be in fitful anticipation of the next arrival or departure, but, to add insult to exhaustion, some members of my family wake up at ungodly hours. Kid, did you know there was a 5 am? And that my uncle is almost always awake for it? And, for reasons that escape me, REARRANGING DISHES IN HIS KITCHEN?

Even at your tender age, little blond kid (what are you, eight? nine? At what age are children too old to be considered adorable, but still sticky? Because that’s where you are), I hope you realize how effed up it is for my uncle to be unloading the entirety of his china cabinet before the sun has dared shed light on our corner of the planet.

Between the earth-shaking boom of the planes and the antics of humans under the delusion that they are roosters, by the time Rand and I headed home the day after Thanksgiving, I was knackered.  Exhausted. You can imagine my relief when I found out we were upgraded. Even though we spend roughly 1/3 of all our waking hours in airports, first class is something that eludes us. It is a rare treat when I find that we have plush leather seats and a snack available to us. The second we started to ascend, I was out. Ironic, when you think that this same plane probably woke me up earlier this week.

What’s more, I was having that really good dream I have. The one where I’m at a thrift store, and all the expensive clothes I’ve ever wanted are there, and they’re barely used and super cheap and they’re all in my size! And I get to fill my cart up and the total for all my purchases is something like $15. It’s glorious.

What’s that? NO, it is NOT a stupid dream, KID. And no, it does not suggest that I am materialistic (who the hell taught you that word, but failed to teach you the basics of living in our society? WHO?). It just means that I love a good bargain! It is a wonderful dream, and you woke me from it, just as I was trying on that Madewell jersey blazer that I’ve wanted for months. What’s worse, you did so by shaking my chair like an epileptic in the throes of an orgasm ( … okay, you are far too young for me to have said that. But if your parents let you roam freely around the cabin like an aerial version of Lord of the Flies, I suspect you’ve heard worse.)

Kid, do you know what it is like to be woken up on a plane by being shaken violently? I’m not a nervous flyer, but I was hurled from the golden dew of sleep gasping, convinced that this was, in fact, the end. I was going to die in a hideous plane crash on the day after Thanksgiving, and no one in my family would be able to eat turkey again without weeping (or so I like to think).

Instead, I found, to a mix of relief and annoyance, it was not my imminent doom that woke me, but you. And as I stared at you with bloodshot eyes that sought for an explanation, you merely stared at me, and then proceeded to sneeze in my face before marching up to the front lavatory. You slammed the door shut, did your business, and when you can back down the aisle, you glared at me.

Rand, unaware of what abuses you’d inflicted on me before saw only your face and noted, “Man. That little kid just gave you the look of death.”

Later, when I myself heeded the call of nature, I’d discover that someone had given the bathroom floor a fresh misting of urine. In the interest of fairness, I will allow that it might not have been you, kid. It may have been the gentleman sitting across from me who is at least 50 years of age. But given that he has at least 40 years more experience peeing in toilets than you, I suspect it wasn’t him.

All of that is behind us, now, little blond kid. You returned to your seat one row behind me, next to your exhausted, dozing father. I considered for a brief moment waking him up in the same manner you did to me, but decided to let him sleep. He’s dealt with you every day for the last decade or so, and will deal with you every day for another decade. He needs his rest.

A very cranky Everywhereist (foreground) and the sleeping father of the demon child (background).

-

But while I did not voice my frustration to your father, I still felt it, kid. I was exhausted, yet my body was coursing with the adrenaline that had been released when I thought we were plunging towards the earth (as an aside, having a bunch of adrenaline in a situation like that WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL HOW?). And then something happened, kid, that made me forget all of that.

After we had landed, and we all were waiting to get off the plane, I heard sobbing. I turned around, and saw you wailing – absolutely wailing - while your dad attempted to comfort you. Apparently you had been jabbed in the eye by something (it may have been your little sister, your own fists of which you CLEARLY have no control, or the swift hand of fate. Whatever.) and were in hysterics.

I stared at you, kid, while you sobbed, and I actually felt sorry for your little demonic self. Because no matter how evil we are, how often we shake awake poor, exhausted strangers who have done nothing to us, we’re still human. We’re still squishy and mortal and we need sympathy and love.

Looking at you, kid, I understood this notion. And seeing your exhausted father try to comfort you, I knew that one day you’d understand it, too: that even the most obnoxious of us is fragile and delicate and needs to be hugged and comforted.

So here’s to the less shitty person you will one day be, kid. Until then? Cover your mouth when you sneeze, learn to aim your urine stream, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t wake me up unless the plane is actually crashing.

Actually, you know what? If we are going down, just let me sleep. Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

It's true.

-

I also felt it pertinent to include a post-script or two.

We are not bluffing.

-

I just need to know their president’s address, so I can mail it.

• Air France is operated by primates. And not even smart primates, like the ones on T.V. that smoke and can re-enact scenes from movies. No. Dumb primates.
• Our landlord is a misleading jerk.
• Apartments in Seattle are impossible to find and the stress is causing us to go all Mr. Hyde on one other. Rand said something to me that resulted in guilt so severe, tweeps were apologizing on his behalf. And in retaliation, I cut the crotches out of his boxers (he doesn’t know about that yet – SURPRISE, babe! HAPPY SUCKDAY!)

Sigh. Yes, things were not going well. Last night, Rand told me that he was pretty sure someone had put a hex on him. He told me this over the phone. He should have told me this in person, but, alas, he could not. Because he was stuck in Phoenix. And that gets us to the title of this post.

Lately, there has been a lot of craptacular stuff going on lately, and amidst all of that, I got to thinking about how Alaska Airlines was one of the few things that had not let us down recently (I mean, besides keeping us waiting for hours in San Diego a while back).

And then before I could blink, ALASKA WENT AND LET US DOWN. Rather, it let several thousand people down. And kept them there. Apparently Alaska’s computer system (which they use for their flight plans) failed yesterday morning. So no flight plans. And then, no flights (they canceled 140 of them). Rand was in the air during this time, flying from NOLA to Phoenix, where he would catch a connection to Seattle. And because he was in the air, he ended up being last in line to get rebooked.

When he landed, and found his flight canceled, he discovered the soonest (the absolute soonest!) Alaska could get him back to the Northwest (and not even Seattle, but Portland, no less) was TUESDAY. They expected him to stay THREE GODDAMN DAYS IN PHOENIX. Nevermind that he has to be in another country by Wednesday. Fortunately, Rand was quick on the trigger, and managed to get the last seat on a Southwest Airlines flight (god bless you, Southwest. You do not suck). So he’s coming back today (after a connection in Salt Lake City).

In the meantime, Alaska has been doing a great job of apologizing, but not actually fixing anything. I could wax on and on about how an airline of their size shouldn’t have problems of this nature, but that’s obvious. Alaska messed up. Big time. And Rand was the one who had to pay for it.

I truly hope he’s not cursed, though right now I can understand how having Gold status on Alaska might seem like that. But I have to give him props: Rand has been pretty understanding about the whole thing. Still, I suspect his patience is probably wearing thin by now, and he might be in need of a good laugh.

So in that spirit, Rand, I present Alaska Airline’s apology video for the events that transpired yesterday. It is painfully awkward (especially seeing the guy on the left read the teleprompter as he speaks, and the guy on the right doing his best impersonation of the robot from Lost in Space.) Enjoy.

Okay, I admit it: I’m officially worried about you. This post was going to be another Dick Move!, but when I started to consider things a little more, I switched gears from “blinded by rage” to “concerned about your well-being.”

Seriously, we need to talk.

Have you completely given up?

Because it’s starting to feel like it. When I visited back in the spring with Desiree, I had hoped that the things I witnessed (cranky personnel, jacked-up prices, and a general air of pure hate for mankind) were simply a phase you were going through. I mean, you have gone through phases. Remember this? Or the time you thought you should go back to your original color? Sigh. But we got through that together, didn’t we?

I figured, the next time I see Seattle Center, it will be cheerful and upbeat and back to its old tricks. But that wasn’t the case.

I once again had out-of-town visitors (including Katie and my poor, easily-corrupted cousin) and since none of them had ever visited the Space Needle, it seemed like an obvious excursion. Why? Because people LOVE you, Space Needle. And for some reason, you think that it gives you license to suck.

After waiting in line for a solid 40 minutes (part of which was in a glass corridor- I lack the ability to tell you how heinous that experience was, because the portion of my brain reserved for that sort of thing was COOKED), we finally made it!

No, not to the elevators. Of course not. We had made it to the cheesy promotional photo area! Whoo-hoo! I had been telling everyone that we needed to go all-out for our photo for the better part of our wait in line. It was, I am convinced, the only thing that held us together during the tortuous journey through the infernal glass hallway of doom. It was a promise of hope at the end of our pain, of novelty props and blue-screen backgrounds.

But when we got there, we found that the umbrella props were broken, and we quite literally had to FIGHT WITH THE FRIGGIN STAFF in order to use the other props available – mainly, a salmon and an over-sized Starbucks coffee cup. They grew incredibly impatient at our attempts to enjoy ourselves. They simply wanted us to grumble through the photo move on. Seriously? If want I want a picture of me looking miserable, I can just look at EVERY PHOTO OF ME EVER TAKEN DURING MIDDLE SCHOOL. Why not let folks have a little fun after they’ve cooked part of their brains while …

Wait, what? What’s going on? Anyway …

Now, it would seem logical that the staff would want to rush us through our picture, right? After all, there’s a huge line waiting behind us, slowly baking to death. But guess what? THERE WAS ALSO A LINE IN FRONT OF US.

That’s right. Your staff, dear Space Needle, wanted to rush us through our photo so we could HURRY UP AND WAIT IN ANOTHER LINE. I want you to take a moment to reflect on how little sense that makes.

But again, we waited, now somewhat upset at the scolding we received when attempting to find joy in your bowels, Space Needle. It was at this point, that I began to consider what exactly your hiring practices were. How does a institution like yourself amass a staff that is equal parts apathetic and hateful? You’d think the two ideas would cancel one another out, and YET THEY DIDN’T. I can only imagine the exchanges that happen in your HR department …

“This candidate apparently stabbed his application repeatedly with a ballpoint pen. Also, under last place of employment, he wrote, ‘your mom.’”

“Have him manage the gift shop.”

We eventually made it up to the top, where your employees seem slightly less hateful. Is it the lack of oxygen? Or the fear that if they really piss someone off, they might get tossed down to the bottom? Whatever the case, they seem to loathe humanity less. By comparison, it was like Christmas morning.

Of course, we were packed in with several other hundred tourists … and for what, I’m not exactly sure. $20 a person doesn’t really seem to buy that much. It’s not like you can redeem your ticket for a drink or anything. I just wish that after all the waiting and rushing to get up to the top, it wasn’t such a let down (SEE WHAT I DID THERE?).

You know what would be cool? A slide. Seriously, if you made some sort of slide that took people down to the bottom, I would TOTALLY pay $20 for that.

Where was I? Oh, yeah. We finally made it up to the top, circled around, snapped some photos, and decided to head back down.

So. We. Got. Back. In. Line.

Yeah, you heard me. THERE WAS A FRIGGIN LINE TO GET DOWN, TOO. Honestly, Space Needle, there I times when I think you are fucking with me.

And, because I’m sucker for punishment, I went to the photo kiosk in the gift shop, the scene of our last Dick Move. Why? We wanted to see our photo. Sadly, because we had to rush through it, it wasn’t nearly as awesome as I had envisioned. And for some reason, I’m grimacing. Also, the blue in my shirt was apparently the same color as the blue screen, so there are trees in my abdomen. Whatever.

Seriously, though, how friggin suave is my cousin? Coolest fifteen year old, EVER.

-

On the plus side, you’ve apparently given people the option to download their photos for free, should they decide they don’t want to spend an additional $20 on a low-quality print. So we’ll list that under “Pros”.

As for the “Cons” pile … sigh. There’s a joke there. Something about how one of your cons is that all of your employees are ex-cons. Or something. I don’t know. Like I said, that part of my brain got cooked.

The point is, I’m worried about you, Space Needle. I’m scared you’re going to start drinking too much or carrying on with QWEST field and YOU KNOW WHAT I THINK OF THAT. Just promise me, if you feel you need to talk, you’ll call me. Because despite all the rough times we’ve shared as of late, we’ve had good times, too. Remember senior prom? It was freezing cold and cloudy, but you managed to make that night magical.

And when I was a kid, you were, I swear, the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

So try to suck a little less, okay?

-

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

-

P.S. – You’ll notice I didn’t even mention your restaurant. You’re welcome.

-P

We had a lovely time at the top of the Space Needle with Desiree. If you’re visiting Seattle, I strongly suggest you go …

I am starting to perfect the one-handed self-portrait.

-

Afterwards, we visited the gift shop, hereafter referred to as “the place where shit went down.” For the record, I think that souvenir photos – the kind you are forced to take when visiting almost any tall building (or novelty museum, or before heading on a boat tour) are ridiculously over-priced and occassionally tacky. Sometimes, though, the photos are hysterical, and include friends of yours who you’ve known since the fourth grade, and consequently MUST BE PURCHASED.

This was one of those times …

How could I not buy this? This is our relationship in microcosm.

-

So we chatted with the girl behind the counter, told her about our discount, and she quickly told us the price we’d pay for our photo – essentially $15 instead of $20. This was incredibly advantageous, because while $20 constitutes “too expensive”, $15 is just barely under the limit I find acceptable to spend on impulse buys.

I pulled out my credit card, and the girl took it and started ringing us up. She asked her supervisor was the discount code was, and her supervisor noted that it had been discontinued a few months before.

“There’s no discount,” the first gal explained. “It was discontinued a few months ago.”

We stood, a little confused.

“Yeah,” I said, “But you just quoted us on a lower price. Can’t you give us the discount, anyway?”

“Nope.”

And at this point, folks, shit went down. They flat out refused to help us. They went from kind and courteous to downright rude. There was eye-rolling. There were cocked eyebrows. There was righteous indignation (on our parts).

We mentioned that the discount had been valid when Jamie bought her pass. We felt that Jamie’s discount should have been grandfathered in, and should still count.

The answer remained “no.”

Dick Move, Space Needle Gift Shop.

This was no longer about five friggin dollars. This was about principle (isn’t is always?). In the end, I found myself quite unimpressed with the behavior of the staff at the Space Needle gift shop photo processing kiosk (There. I said it). At the point where we were politely asking for a discount that we have previously been quoted on, they should have given it to us and called it good (seriously, the profit margins on those photos are obscene. A $5 reduction wouldn’t have hurt anyone). I would have simply walked away, but the picture was so damn awesome, and frankly, I really wanted to get it. I figured we needed it as a balm for this stupid customer service. And we needed it at 25% off, but whatever.

Angry Desiree is angry (sort of).

-

So I purchased it, full price. The photo was adorable, and I’m glad I did. But I was still peeved about the whole exchange, the lousy customer service, the lack of a discount I felt we were entitled to. So I did what any passive-aggressive, rule-abiding Seattlite would do: I wrote them a sternly-worded letter.

And, oh, how it was sternly worded.

I explained my displeasure at being in the process of paying and then being told I had to pay more. And how I felt Jamie’s discount should have been valid.

I received a prompt reply and an apology from a woman named Lisa. She explained that the discount hadn’t been valid for years (and that Jamie had been misinformed  by whoever sold her the annual pass - weak), but that the exchange shouldn’t have gone down as it did.

Frankly, that’s all I wanted to hear. If someone had said, “Shoot! I’m so sorry – that discount hasn’t been valid in ages,” from the start, I’d have been perfectly content, and wouldn’t have had to resort to the barbarism of a complaint email.

But Lisa insisted on going one step further, and sent me two free passes to the Space Needle. For the record, I felt this was unnecessary. I don’t like it when companies reward complaints with free stuff (I think it just encourages illegitimate complaints, and it doesn’t solve the original problem). And I didn’t like the guilt I felt upon receiving the free tickets – because it wasn’t a fair exchange. I wanted a $5 discount – not $40 worth of free passes.

But it still was a lovely gesture, and a smart one – I applaud her for it.

Fortunately, my friend Katie is visiting next month, and I’ve promised the tickets to her (she has the noble profession of being a teacher. She deserves free stuff).

And I’ll suggest maybe she should skip the photo kiosk.

Which, I’m sure, is why there are roughly 500 photos of the inside of Stew Leonard’s on Flickr.

This put me in a rather foul mood – besides which, I wasn’t really clear on whether or not I could take photos inside of the store. So I sent a complaint email to the company via their website. Shockingly, they replied. And then I replied back. And they replied again.

I was going to include the entire exchange in this post, but it bored even me, and I’m an active participant in the whole thing. I consequently figured it would put the rest of you in a mild coma. And I don’t want to be responsible for that. Instead, I’ve decided to divide the whole thing into six brief chapters.

-

Chapter I:

My husband and I are yelled at for trying to take photos inside of Stew Leonard’s. I declare this a Dick Move! As I have a rebellious streak that rivals that of a 12-year-old honor student, I also proceed to take numerous surreptitious photos.

-

Chapter II:

Upon returning home, I send a semi-moronic complaint email to Stew Leonard’s. I conclude with the following phrase, for which I am somewhat embarrassed to take credit:

… Stew Leonard’s is not, by any means, the Disneyland of Dairy. How could it be? In Disneyland, you can take photos.

Spelling and grammar are not priorities, as I assume the letter will never receive a response.

A few weeks later, I am proved wrong.

-

Chapter III:

A lovely gal by the name of Eileen (last name withheld), who signed her email with “Assistant to the President” replies to my note. She agrees that the employee who yelled at me was rude, and his behavior was inappropriate. She also explains that photos in Stew Leonard’s are, in fact, prohibited, and photos can only be taken “at the rock or with the costumed characters.”

I’ve used the following photo and caption before on the site, but since Eileen specifically mentions the rock, it seems only right to include it again:

What if the customer wants to take photos? WHAT THEN?

-

Chapter IV:

Not wishing to let sleeping dairy cows lie, I reply to Eileen and explain to her that I think Stew Leonard’s no-photo policy is a big mistake. I note that travel writers (of which I claim I am one – what? I can pretend to be legit. It’s the internet. Everyone’s legit) can’t adequately convey the “Stew Leonard’s experience” without photos. And I note that there are thousands of photos of the store online (yes, I even send her that link).

I conclude with this:

I strongly hope, given that Stew Leonard’s “no-photo” policy seems arbitrary, unenforceable, and counter-intuitive, you will reconsider it in future years. In the meantime, I am sure that countless travel writers will be unable to write glowing reviews of Stew Leonard’s for this exact reason, and that is a loss for everyone involved.

And yes, I am fully aware of how obnoxious I sound.

-

Chapter V:

I believe I’m broken poor Eileen’s spirit. She’s probably a wholesome, freckled girl who was an over-achiever in school. The type who got excited about science projects and who remembered to send thank-you notes after birthday parties. She’s not used to dealing with long-winded crazies.

Her final reply to me is a short one:

Hi Geraldine,

Thanks for your kind words about our store.  If you would ever like a tour here, I would be happy to set it up for you.

Have a great weekend!

Best regards,

Eileen

-

Chapter VI:

I consider writing back to Eileen once more …

I’d love a tour! I can take pictures during it, right?

But it just seems so, so mean. I decide against it, and instead go eat a hunk of cheese, because all this talk of dairy has made me hungry.

-
The End.