Open Letters (Special "The Airline Industry Can Suck It" Edition)

[Remember this Twilight Zone episode with the monster on the airplane wing? This was about the only thing that didn't happen to me during my travel day yesterday.]

My Cancun trip was great but not without some issues, which will be chronicled in my next post. But in honor of the 17 hour ordeal it took for me to get home yesterday (sadly that is not an exaggeration), I present you with the next installment of Open Letters.

PS - To all you Haters who commented that I seem to take a lot of vacations, I have only this to say: It isn't easy being me (as illustrated below).

Dear Mexicana Air Passengers On The 1:20 Flight to Miami Who Showed Up An Hour Before Your Flight: Thanks for teaching me a valuable lesson that it does indeed pay to sleep in and show up late for your flight. While the rest of us did the responsible thing and arrived to the airport at least 2 hours before our international flights, a whole busload of you fuckers got special treatment by skipping the long lines and heading straight to the front desk as to not miss your flight. While I then had to wait even longer because you got to go ahead of me. Bravo! Oh, and also: Fuck You.

Dear Incompetent Mexicana Air Ticket Agent: While I appreciate your effort to multitask and check several people in at the same time, I’d like to thank you for mixing up my passport with someone else's and leaving me identity-free in a foreign country. And thank you for trying to make me look like the idiot when I asked you for my passport back and you insisted - in your snotty fey way - that you already gave it back to me when in actuality you not only did not give it back to me, you put it into a stack of passports that were handed back to someone else (!). Given the fact that at this point I had already been waiting in line for 90 minutes (see above open letter), I appreciated those long 5 minutes of waiting and praying that the woman passenger who did actually have it would come back to the counter and return it so that I would be able to leave the country.

Dear Benito Juarez International Airport: Thanks for not turning on the air conditioner Saturday. It made my two-hour layover that much more pleasant. Oh, and also: I'm reasonably sure they sell vacuum cleaners in Mexico City. There's a Wal-Mart there somewhere. Look into it.

Dear Customs Lady at Zacatecas International Airport: After searching my carry-on bag, thanks for telling me that I had to throw out the $12 worth of bottled water, Gatorade and Coke Zero (I was thirsty and needed to get rid of some pesos) that I purchased during the layover in Mexico City before I re-boarded the plane. Yeah, I’ll get right on that. I understand you do things differently in Mexico, but that just doesn't make any sense. Eat me.

Dear Incompetent Mexicana Air Flight Attendant: Thanks for spilling that kettle of scalding-hot water on the poor woman in 6-A, causing us to make an unplanned emergency stop in Dallas so that she could be treated at the fucking hospital, and prolonging the already long trip for the rest of us by another hour. I hope you and the airline have a good lawyer.

Dear CTA Blue Line: Thanks so much for NOT posting a sign at O’Hare letting us know you’re doing track work and that the line between Cumberland and Jefferson Park is fucking closed. Had I known, I would have taken a fucking cab and gotten home at 2:30 am instead of 3:30 am. Go fuck yourselves.

Dear Drunken Smelly Vagrant In My Train Car: Normally the incredible odor radiating from your being and permeating the whole fucking car alone would be enough for a shout-out, but I’d really like to thank you for waiting until the train left the Jefferson Park station towards the city before you woke suddenly from your drunken stupor, stumbled over to my end of the car, and whipped it out to empty the entire contents of your bladder onto the floor directly opposite of where I was sitting. It was the icing on the cake of my shitty travel day, and just the kind of “Welcome Back to Chicago” message I was lacking. Hats off to you!