I'm a Whore to my Airline.

Seat 24C, the second worst seat on a Boeing 777. (The worst seat is just
behind it, in the exit aisle). I am, as usual, suffering for my art and
doing a long haul across the pond. I had hoped to get some sleep during
the ten hour ordeal. I had also hoped to get an upgrade.

Instead I'm enjoying the unenvious position of being a) Close enough to the
toilets to enjoy the usual water cooler conversations that seem to run too
loud and too late into the night. b) My seat actually sticks out into the
aisle so EVERYONE bumps my seat as they walk past. c) The couple at the
other end of the row have a baby that won't stop crying. And, as icing on
the cake, d) I'm stuck next to someone who has decided that they do not want
to sleep and would rather work all night on their powerpoint presentation
that, now that I've had all night to read it, looks like crap.

You would think that these people would be aware of the folks around them
and reconsider their actions. But there is nothing I can do about it, I
just have to suck it up and enjoy my time in the coach ghetto.

So, I could be feeling a lot of pain, but at least I'm not Bob.

Bob travels as much as I do and by some odd coincidence he is actually on
my flight. Bob is also, I've decided, insane. He is doing something that
is affectionately called a 'mileage run'. He is flying to from San
Francisco to London where, after knocking back a few pints in the
departure lounge, will then get back on the plane and fly back to The Bay

He is doing this to get an extra 20,000 miles which will bump his frequent
flyer status. His argument is that with his improved status he has a
better chance of getting upgraded on later flights. So he is feeling the
pain of slumming it in coach for 24 hours just so he doesn't have to
slum it later.

I tried to point out that if he just didn't fly so often, he wouldn't feel
the pain at all.

It is kinda like buying things on sale. Sure the item is cheap, but you
would also save a lot more money if you just didn't buy the damn thing.

However, this is not why he is insane, well not directly. What is dumb is
that he is taking luggage with him. Here is the perfect opportunity to
travel really light. All you would need is a clean shirt, passport and a
credit card. Even Indy Jones couldn't get this good, he still had to find
somewhere to hang his whip.

Instead Bob has four DVDs, three days worth of clothes, two laptops and,
probably, a partridge in a pear tree. He muttered something about 'having
to get some work done'.

My only response was to just be a smug bastard and tell him that I have
three days of clothes because I'm going to Barcelona.

Unfortunately this meant that I had to endure the extra security while
moving between terminals at Heathrow, the usual connecting flight delays,
discovering that trains in Barcelona do not have route maps (I guess
people just 'know' where they are going). I barely had enough Euros and
was mostly guessing as to where the hotel was. Maybe turning around at
Heathrow was the saner thing to do.

When I did finally stumble into my accommodations to check in, 'Hotel
California' was playing over the sound system.

"...You can check out any time you like..."