Good morning, afternoon and evening sports fans:

Today’s story deals with travel and the wonderful experiences that can occur. But first things first. Today I learned that my ThinkPad can dail almost any location on the planet, except from an a Delta Airlines Crown Club Room. I am not sure why, since I seemed to be following all of the directions clearly, but it was one of those crazy things that one chalks up to ‘oh well.’

My adventure begins with the U.S. Shuttle driver who is not quite sure how to get to Logan Airport. We essentially drive in circles around Waltham for about 20 minutes before he finally realizes where the MassPike is. Armed with this information, he then avoids the MassPike and takes the scenic route, as if to show the MassPike who is boss. Anyway, after finally arriving at Logan Airport (and leaving the U.S. Shuttle smuck-o with a tip to buy a better map of Boston), I go the Business Check-In line at the Delta Counter. It’s me, my bags…and the carpet that my laptop bag latched onto to about 2 yards ago. Little kids are laughing, as are adults. The Air France people actually staffing the flight are laughing at me too. It is only when I wave my business class ticket in the air that they flock like the same way Rich flocks to Kerplackistani oil stocks. That is when I realized the true power of business class. And I made a snotty internal remark of my own. Well, someone in Air France must be able to hear my thoughts, because the Air France staff would get their revenge.

If you ever get a business class ticket, relish the opportunity to go into their executive lounge. They say that they have a dress code, but you can be dressed as badly as Brian and still get in because they even allow Structure X-Pants. The drinks are free and flowing thanks to overwhelmingly strong opposition to turning business lounges into cash bars or getting rid of alcohol entirely (thus keeping ticket prices high enough so that people like you and I couldn’t normally afford them). Anyway, I was loving the lounge until I was ripped away like a newborn baby from a mama’s breast.

Once on the plane, they served us some sort of salad as an opening course. It was a ritzy salad with mayonnaise on the side. I told myself “don’t eat that stuff, Rodney, you’ll do untold damage to your innerds.” Then, in a Homer-like retort, I also thought “hmmm, sweet mayonnaise.” Then, the mother of all temptation struts along in her Air France uniform and says “Monsieur Cornelius, eat the mayonnaise. Join us. Join us.” When in Rome…so I ate some of it. She then laughed crazily and said “ha, boy, your innerds will pay for giving in to the desires of mayonnaise. And didn’t you leave your Immodium AD in the bag you checked in?” She then disappeared and almost immediately I felt ill. At that point, I asked the crew mechanic to stuff my business class seat in the lavatory because it was going to be a long flight.

Upon landing at Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, I went directly to a pharmacy, where they laugh when you present them with bodily function problems. One eventually helped me, but I had to wait until they removed the original pharmacist who passed out from laughing so hard. Now, when I say pharmacist, I mean that in more a figurative sense then a literal sense, because one only needs approval from Sally Struthers to be licensed in France. Skipping the mindless drivel, the ordeal took 30 minutes and I ended up with something like Immodium AD…it was called Immodium AD. When I got the counter to pay, I realized that I was so into my French Airport Bathroom Fest ’99 that I forgot to get money. So I said “excuse kind madame, could you see your way to giving me this medication today and I will gladly repay you on Tuesday?” Since she has never seen Popeye, she scoffed at me and I had to use my MasterCard. I still don’t feel better, but at least I am not acculmulating frequent guest points in French airport restrooms anymore.

So now I sit in the Air France Business Lounge, waiting to live, waiting to die, waiting for that evil Air France flight attendant so that I can place her in the guilletine for suggesting the mayonnaise. On this connecting flight to Singapore, I told them to only give me bread, since I cannot trust anything else. Or maybe someone out there has an immune system that I can borrow for the trip. I’ve been in the lounge for about 4 hours now. I even fell asleep here with my wallet on the table. Good golly, executive lounges are like living in Saudi Arabia. Pretty cool.

Anyway, that food concern may not really be a problem. We have been informed that due to strike by the catering service personnel, we will not be having any catered meals. Not even in business class. Or first class. We had boxed meals bought in and that was an experience. It was being in summer camp. And since I like sea food so much (this is sarcasm here), of course they only had sea food boxed lunches. Yipee! So I had nothing to do but sleep. But for my troubles, I swiped a bottle of wine from the galley before I got off of the plane in Singapore.

So now I am in Singapore. The hotel is awesome. The food I have eaten is very good and my digestive track is slowly recovering. The hotel even provides free early-evening cocktails, so that is even better. But i guess that is a story for another time.

Sianora

–RC–