Two Blankets, Two Cans of Soda

I'm continually amazed and appalled at how bad flying has gotten. Prices up, service down. No joke. First they did away with meals. Ok, no biggie, since they pretty much sucked anyway. We got snack boxes with fruit, yogurt, a sandwich, cookies instead. Plus a drink. Sort of mom's sack lunches without the resuable brown paper bag. No peanuts (allergies you know, and they didn't want passengers going dead mid-flight). Occasional pretzels. Plenty of seconds on these. Then you had to ask for much-dimished snack boxes. But at least everyone got a blanky and pillow.

Alas, just this past week on my $300 Alabama-to-Dallas-to-California flight, there was roughly one blanket for every three people, no pillows, and I was informed that I could have the pleasure of purchasing, for $3, a cookie, a granola bar, or a container of chips. For $5, I could have a lunch meat wrap. At least the soda was free. I took two blankets, one per leg, and figured I'd gotten my money's worth.

Buy two blankets at $150 each, get a free flight. And just to show you how nice we are, we'll give you a free can of soda and 5 ice cubes!

But if there is an upside, it's this.....most airports have free wireless, their dramamine is dirt cheap, and you can still find drunk men in rumpled suits and college athletes in windbreakers and slippers to watch. Not to mention the obligatory bleach-blonde former debutante sporting a bad facelift and a chihuahua accessory, the woman on a cell phone with three kids playing hide and seek at the gate, the three men screaming into their cell phones, and the lost looking twenty-something in pajamas, lugging his backpack and diet coke, trying to figure out which way to the nearest john. Oh, wait, that's me.