The Clowns Have Landed - Twice

There is only one thing better than flying into Aspen on a Sunday evening... and that is flying into Aspen twice on a Sunday evening. Apparently a tiny ran shower and a pilot who forgets to check the gas gauge before leaving Denver will cause this. I think we were about two minutes from touching down when the pilots pulled up the landing gear, pegged the throttle, and b-lined back to Denver. Fun shit, especially for the passenger by my side, who already had her face buried in a barf bag. Oddly enough, one needs to put both the mouth _and_ nose in the bag to achieve maximum efficiency.

I was witness to the standard pains of flying yet again today, but I was able to add to my list of annoyances.

• Anyone involved, associated, or any way affiliated with PartyLite candles should not be allowed to fly unless they sign a contract disallowing them from talking about how difficult it is to sell candles, how good they are at said selling, and/or any other facet of the candle industry. Seriously people, get a freaking life... and a real job. I'm sure that yesterday's PartyLite convention was mind blowing and an all-out hoot, but seriously... get a fucking life. Unless one of your candles has found itself jammed into my temple through a freak candle-lighting accident, I couldn't care less. Two hours of my life on a plane that I will never get back. Well, not quite two hours. I spent a good 15-17 minutes contemplating whether I could stick a left jab between the two seats in front of me, and about 30 seconds deciding if it was morally correct and/or warranted. At least my priorities were straight.
  
• If you're a flight attendant... freaking do something. I don't care what it is. Gather trash, offer some water, clean the damn bathroom. Just don't sit in the empty first class seat reading the latest smut magazine to hit the shelves. At a bare minimum, fix your makeup. Just because you're flying into new destinations all of the time doesn't mean the circus has to come to town with you.
• What part of the "fasten seat belt" sign is so hard to understand? Seriously!? When the little light comes on and the clown-faced lazy-assed attendant announces that everyone must be seated and buckled up, what happens in some people's minds that makes them think that any of the following things are appropriate:
• Getting up and going to the bathroom
• Letting your kids run wild in the cabin
• Standing up and walking around to stretch your legs
• Digging through one of your 15 bags to find a useless piece of clothing that you suddenly and desperately found the need to wear
• And finally, when placing the standard-sized roller-bag in the overhead bin, how freaking hard is it to understand that you put it in wheels first, as far to the left or right as you can? People really don't understand this. Maybe it was all the Tetris I played as kid, but come one people, we aren't solving the freaking DaVinci code.
  

Anyway, I'm in Aspen now. I'm sure I'll have more rants once tomorrow begins.