-Upon choosing an idea for a column, the first thing I do is try to come up with a clever pun for the title, such as Lord of the Slings, As the World Interns, or my personal favorite, Manifest Destiny’s Child. This week, when I decided to write about how air travel makes my blood boil, I came up with Travel Ragency. I Googled the term and, much to surprise, discovered I was the first person in the history of the Internet to use it. The one thing that truly unites us in this country is our hatred of the airport, so you’d figure someone would have come up with this mediocre pun before me. I guess not. So as your very first Travel Ragent, please buckle up, return your tray tables to the upright position, and prepare for the always delayed, totally uncomfortable, horrible-in-every-way ride.

-If you put your jacket, by itself, in the overhead bin, I will destroy it with my suitcase. This isn’t the fucking trunk of your car; this is a public stowage area. Believe me, you don’t want to know where my rollaboard has been, but you will as soon as I go wheels first into your blazer, you selfish prick.

-It’s gotten to the point where I actually feel worse for flight attendants than I do for strippers. The safety demonstration might as well be the last dance before lunch on Tuesday at the gentlemen’s club.

-If you’re actually at the counter at an airport, you better either be over the age of ninety or have had something horribly wrong happen to your plans. The counter is where impatient, soulless airline personnel deal with exasperated, dim-witted passengers. It’s hell on earth, complete with phony smiles and dot matrix printers.

-Can we come up with a better delivery mechanism for the paper towels in the airplane bathroom besides jamming one thousand of them into a slot the space of a deck of cards?

-I’m not a big fast food eater, but if your airport doesn’t have a major chain in its food court, you’re not a real city. I’m exhausted, hungover, and have a twenty-minute layover. I want a fucking Big Mac, not slop from a place that serves both bagels and spring rolls.

-I put my liquids in a clear plastic bag just in case I get called out for a random check, but I don’t even bother taking the bag itself out of my luggage like you’re supposed to. Guess what? No one has ever noticed. If it’s possible to take down a plane with the contents of a two-ounce bottle of conditioner, we’re all fucked.

-Common courtesy suggests that if you’re in the middle seat and the person in the aisle gets up to use the restroom, you should use that opportunity to go as well. Because if you ask me to get up again within twenty minutes of my returning, I will end you.

-It seems to me that if you have a problem with the TSA, either you’re overly sensitive or you’re actually a terrorist. I’ve been frisked and patted down a billion times. Is it pleasant to have a high school dropout in latex gloves roam perilously close to my junk? No. Do I mind? Not at all. Honestly, whatever keeps this line moving and maintains the fragile illusion of security. Hell, I’ll let you touch it for real if that gets me into Zone 1 – and onto the plane before that douchebag and his precious fucking jacket.

-As always, here are some random things I’ve been ruminating about lately…

-I love the looks on my wasted friends’ faces when the bill comes and I remind them that we should tip on full prices even though it’s happy hour. You’d think I just asked them to prove the Pythagorean theorem.

-I was looking at a photo spread of some uber-airbrushed starlet in Maxim and noticed that at the bottom of the page they list the brands of the clothes she’s wearing. Which was convenient because I’ve been in the market for some garter belts.

-It’s never a good sign when you’re blacked out drunk, the bar bill is getting passed around to the most sober person at the table, and it ends up in your hands.

-My friend says there’s nothing strange about moving in with a guy she’s been dating for only a few months. Her rationale: “It’s not like I’m twenty-five anymore.” Really? I wasn’t aware your age had anything to do with how well you know another person.

-My friend thought a customer service rep’s voice sounded cute, so she Googled his name, found his profile on LinkedIn, discovered that he actually is cute, and that he lives in Michigan. After telling me this entire story, she said she had a question for me. I said okay. She said, “So…could you see me living in Michigan?” And here I thought her question was gonna be, “Is it weird to stalk strangers on LinkedIn?”

-It used to be that you knew you’d made it as a rapper if you had hot cars and bling in your videos. Now, you know if you’ve made it as a rapper if you have a full-on symphony horns section in your song. Bonus points for violin and/or harp in the chorus.

-It’s been proven as fact that an accent makes a girl at least one point hotter. But if she both has an accent and stumbles on an English word, that’s at least two points. It doesn’t matter what she’s actually trying to say, I just want to press my finger gently against that French chick’s lips and go, “Shhhh, don’t you worry. I’ll get you that green card.”

-If you used to be too poor to go to the club and now you’re buying the bar, that’s a legitimate rap boast. If you used to be too young to go to the club and now you’re buying the bar, that’s just being a dick.

-And, finally, while I’m normally ambivalent about celebrities, flying into LAX so much does make for some interesting sightings. Like recently I saw Jack McBrayer (Kenneth the page on 30 Rock) on a flight from New York and they actually played 30 Rock on the flight. I couldn’t help but wonder if he hoped no one would look at him or if everyone would look at him. But the craziest thing that’s ever happened to me was when I saw Michael Emerson (Ben from LOST) board my flight from O’Hare. However, when I got on after him…he wasn’t on the plane! I swear I checked every seat on way my down the aisle and all the bathrooms were vacant. It’s like he disappeared into thin air. My first thought: Ben’s still got it. My second thought: even he wants to skip the safety demonstration. Fuck me!

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