I used to like Southwest. I even used to watch their awesome commercials by choice on YouTube. Maybe it's the fact that they used ugly actors and actresses to play the role of baggage handlers and stewardesses to give a "real life" effect to their intended sincerity for not charging for bags like the cheapskates Delta and United do. Or maybe it's the fact that if you owned a printer, you could check in 24 hours early thereby be privileged to board the plane earlier than anyone else and thus feel like a princess (an honor reserved for only the rich and/or famous with competitor airlines). Unfortunately, I am not rich enough to buy a printer so I am usually relegated to the "C" boarding class, and watch all the other women less worthy than me board and get their preferred seats. My goal in 2010 is to one day own a printer and show all those spoiled woman what I'm made of. But I digress.
I don't know about you, but when I board a plane, I just want to sit there, not talk to anyone, and get the whole thing over with. Thank god I recently lost weight because I no longer am forced to experience that uncomfortable stranger-on-stranger thigh rub which beckons an occasional "I'm sorry" or "Excuse me." Phew for that!
But then Southwest does have one flaw. Their employees try to be funny. And not quarky funny, but more like "I've memorized the oldest flying jokes in the book and try to make you laugh with them but inadvertently end up offending you because it undershoots your IQ" kind of funny. This has happened more than once, and its worse if you're seated in the vicinity of idiot passengers that are actually actively engaged and even verbally responding to these jokes.
Like today for example. I'm on a 3 hour flight to Portland from LA, and the pilot gets on the speaker and is like "We'll be arriving in Portland in 18 hours. Have a great flight." Woaaahoaa Mr. Pilot man. That was funny. You lied about the flight time to freak out the passengers, and somehow expected to garner a few chuckles at least from the slight error in calculation! As expected, no one laughed. Mostly because they weren't paying attention. Disappointed he gets back on the speaker. "Did anybody hear that? Huh? I said 18 hours." Then of course, I'm seated next to the only dolt in the entire airplane that starts laughing at the top of her lungs. "Oh I get it! That's hilarious! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Fuck. I was pissed.
It didn't stop there. When we landed the pilot started making cowboy and horse noises to recreate some kind of scene from a John Wayne film. I personally didn't see the connection between flying a 4 ton airplane with 100 passengers to some overweight man riding a horse through the desert. (But then again, I'm not white.) And then the final lamest flying joke in the book. "Hope everyone enjoys Honolulu" while we were taxiing. Everyone in the plane laughed again. Except me. Then that idiot next to me piped up again. laughing and yelling back "We're not in Honolulu silly!". (Seriously, for someone well-to-do enough to own a Coach bag, not very bright.) I wanted to bang my head against the window at that very moment. But my forehead was already sore from pressing my head against the window to see the view right before we hit turbulence.
So here I am, nursing my splitting headache caused by the danger that is airplane windows. Weird that they don't have any warnings about that on their safety cards. I'm going to write the US Department of Flying about this and also about having a segregated section for idiots. As for Southwest, they really need to send their employees to comedy school or some shit because what they're trying to do right now is just not working. Well, not for me anyways. If I wanted to laugh, I'd go out and watch a drama starring Jennifer Lopez not board an airplane to go home.
top five. fantastic.
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