On Board United 653

So off to Sacramento.  Fun times, meeting with the State tomorrow.  Lucked out and got a United non-stop instead of the Denver-Salt Lake City-Los Angeles-Sacramento routing.  Saved Sprinty Sprint some cash dinero as well, found a $160 flight credit lounging around at the travel agent that went toward the price of the ticket.

I get to DIA in the recommended amount of time, parking went great, was picked up at the car by the bus, whisked to the terminal in about 10 minutes.  Got checked in (again, already did it online yesterday), and the pain through TSA was non-existent.  Caught up on email in the business center - great - decent wi-fi connection, and then made it to my gate with some time to spare. 

Then at the prescribed time, United Airlines started it's boarding process for my flight.  Here is how their process works:

1. Royal bloods
2. United World "Charles Bring My Car Around for Me" status
3. Military (in uniform only, that's cool they do this)
4. 100K fliers
5. Premier Executive
6. Continental super secret presidential level one pass
7. Elderly
8. Premier
9. Families w/ screaming kids
10. Fools who paid $109 to get on early
11. Seating area 1
12. Clinically diagnosed obese individuals
13. Passengers that were born on a Tuesday
14. Seating area 2
15. Legal Chinese immigrants
16. Amish
17. Continental one pass members
18. Survivors of any USAir flight
19. Illegal Chinese immigrants
20. Seating area 3
21. Carnival workers
22. Last call for the elderly
23. Buddy pass tix holders
24. Me

Once on board, I headed for my seat, 40B.  That's Row 40.  Out of 40 rows.  Much to my surprise, there is a large woman (a benefactor of #12) in my seat.  "Is this your seat?" she says.  "No shit, Sherlock" is what I want to reply with, but a simple grunt in the affirmative will have to suffice.  She moves into 40B.  Big mistake.

Imagine, if you will the typical Steerage Class configuration of a domestic Boeing 757.  Three seats, each of which have a space capacity of 33.3/33.3/33.3.  Now, put some humans into the equation, whose bodies make this roughly 25/50/25.  You want an arm rest?  Fat chance of that (pardon the pun).  You want to lean over your right side so your shoulder is now in the aisle?  Then you are gonna love this flight.  Just wait until the beverage cart comes through and slams your shoulder without any forewarning.  Glad I took a muscle relaxer.

Then this bitch, with her seatmate in 40A talk the entire flight.  And talk.  And talk.  Know more about them then I ever care to...stuff nightmares are made of.  Fortunately I learned how to upload movies to the phone yesterday and I watched Star Trek the entire time. 

Once we land, then the fun part starts - or at least another fun part.  The disembarkation.  200+ people exiting at once.  Everyone stands up and begins their long, tedious wait for the fucking First Class snobs (I call them that only when I am not personally flying First Class) to gather their personal belongings and get out of the plane.  757's have a large front section, so this is particularly drawn out.

Now those of us in the bottom of the Titanic class wait for our peers in lower number rows to get their shit and leave.  It is like cattle.  Cattle at the slaughterhouse.  They all mill around until someone gets the balls to run up that chute to meet their cattle maker.  They are very casual about it, no care in the world.  If you are in a back row and you have to catch a connecting flight, you might as well head straight to customer service and rebook.  Have a nice time sleeping on the cold linoleum!

Well, I finally got off the plane.  Good thing about waiting so long on board, is that your luggage is usually there waiting on you.  Except if you are in Denver.  Denver has "issues".

Got my car, a Buick Lucerne; ever wonder why they make a car that has the same brand name as the Safeway store brand dairy products?  You haven't? Really?  Boy, I have, many times.