My stomach feels like I drank a bottle of drain cleaner. My nose is stuffed like a damned Thanksgiving turkey. My voice cracks, my throat is dry, and I have a migraine whose ferocity rivals Krakatoa. I am not in a good mood.
Because I am sick and in a bad mood, I feel free to take this opportunity to really rant about a few things.
As I hurried to sociology this morning, a guy walking in the opposite direction was kind enough to blow cigarette smoke in my face. I coughed, gagged, and continued on my way. When I got to class, I thought all was good. That was until a girl arrived ten minutes late and sat next to me, in the process knocking my books from my desk, stepping on my purse, and glaring at me for being in her way.
She REEKED of secondhand smoke. I mean, absolutely stunk. It was disgusting.
I was annoyed; I was already sick, and here was this person assaulting me with their foul stench. Really? I wondered. What are you doing in school if you are okay with smelling like an ashtray? Do you think anyone will ever take you seriously, smelling like that?
I cannot stand smoking. It is gross. I don't care if you want to smoke; just don't do it around people who are smart and have made the choice not to consume death sticks. I do not want lung cancer.
Once, I commented on a Facebook forum about smoking. I simply asked "Why do so many people in Portland smoke?"
A smoker told me, in so many words, to screw off.
I did not reply to him, because I do not waste my time on idiots, but I would love to meet him. And kick his ass. The best part is, he wouldn't be able to run away because his lungs are shot.
Boise pales in comparison to Portland when it comes to public smokers. People stand in crowds and smoke. They sit on benches and smoke. They walk along in front of you and smoke. Recently, a woman got onto the train, sat down next to me, and lit up.
So I say to you, anonymous smoker who attempted to insult me, screw YOU! I will live longer, be able to breathe, and my breath smells nice.
My second major complaint stems from an article I read this morning. Find it here- http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63540720100406
An independent airline company is going to charge up to $45 for carry-on luggage.
Are you freaking kidding me?
Alright, we now shell out five bucks for potato chips, fifteen dollars for checked bags, fifty dollars if it's over fifty pounds, and on some airlines, people are forced to buy two seats if they are physiologically large. It's already pretty stupid.
I paid thirty dollars to fly my damn clothes to Boise and back this last spring break. When I went to France a couple of years ago, I had to pay for headphones so I could hear the on-flight movie I had to pay for to watch. When I flew from Philadelphia to Boise, which is a six-hour flight, I had to pay twenty bucks to get some cafeteria-grade food.
And then there is the cost of the tickets themselves. Coach is the lowest level, and even that is expensive sometimes. You want an exit-row seat, which has a few more inches of legroom? That's more money. You want a first-class seat that was actually built to comfortably house humans? That is way more.
And the service sucks. I'm not talking about the service on the plane; I'm talking about the service whilst trying to get to the plane.
Take off your shoes, unpack all of your carry-on items, take off every layer of clothing that isn't absolutely necessary, and if you're lucky, you get patted down by some stranger who is invading your personal space in the name of "security."
And now, airports want to institute full body scanners. Awesome. Now your naked image will be saved on some TSA database. Don't like it? Tough. This is the "safety of our nation" here, people. Your naked image makes us less likely to be attacked.
The best part? You are paying upwards of a hundred dollars to be treated like cattle at an auction.
Once you are on the plane, like I've mentioned, you have no room at all. You get pretty friendly with whoever is seated next to you. And we've now gone so far as to say that you cannot even put anything in the pockets on the backs of seats. I put a book there, just for a moment, and was told to remove it.
What is the point of having the pockets there if you're not allowed to use them?
And now, some airline wants to charge money for us to have our small carry-on bags with us? We have to pay $45 so we can bring our laptop and fiction novel with us? No thank you.
For me, this is the final straw. Thankfully, this is a regional airline. It doesn't affect me. But you know, when one of them starts, others will follow. And when that happens, I am done flying. I don't even like flying. It's faster than driving, sure, but if it's that expensive and that stressful, I'd just as well use a car. Or the train. Or a ship.
The ultimate irony, in my mind, is that planes are one of the few places where cigarettes are absolutely verboten. You absolutely cannot smoke on planes these days. But you also cannot do anything else on planes, either.
I thank you for putting up with my two tangents. I would continue on- god knows the list is long- but I am tired. My head hurts. I want to take a nap.
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