{"id":561,"date":"2009-09-30T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-09-30T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=561"},"modified":"2009-09-30T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2009-09-30T08:00:00","slug":"winging-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=561","title":{"rendered":"Winging It"},"content":{"rendered":"

I do not travel nearly as much as I once did. Back in the day with my former employer, I would travel, on average, about 150 days each year and go to about 70 cities both large and small across America. I might also have traveled once or twice a year internationally.<\/p>\n

I would try to choose the same airline, so I could build miles and status to receive perks like early boarding and an occasional free upgrade to first class.<\/p>\n

My travel is not nearly the same any more. I may travel just a few times each year nowadays. I have to use different airlines, and my once preferred carrier does not offer nearly as many choices as it once did. Thus, I have no status on any airline and am like anyone else. When I do fly, I wait for the cattlecar placement on the plane.<\/p>\n

Take, for example, the recent boarding experience that I had for my return flight home from Phoenix the other day:<\/p>\n

Passengers boarded before me include first class, preferred members, families with babies, disabled people, people with wide-set eyes, purple left thumbs, green feet, and everyone else.<\/p>\n

“We are boarding by zones. Only board when your zone number is called.”<\/p>\n

Everyone queues up anyway. (But the agent enforces the “boarding by zone” rule.)<\/p>\n

“Attention, we are now boarding Zone 90” calls the gate agent.<\/p>\n

Finally… That’s me.<\/p>\n

“Sir, we have run out of middle seats in the back of the plane. Would you prefer to be strapped to the right or left wing?”<\/p>\n

Ummm… I guess the left. I do not have it in me to be a right winger.<\/i><\/p>\n

“Okay, sir, step out here. Good! Straps nice and tight? That’s great! (Who says you’re not into bondage!) It may be a little windy, but the view is excellent!”<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a joke. This is only a joke. For the above post, this blog tested your bad joke deciphering system. This is only a joke. Actually, I got to sit on the tail…<\/i><\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I do not travel nearly as much as I once did. Back in the day with my former employer, I would travel, on average, about 150 days each year and go to about 70 cities both large and small across … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}