I wrote this column a few years ago. I’m republishing it now because I’m flying around the country on a quest for new business for my ad agency.
I hate to fly. I hate airports. I hate being shoeless and beltless while being treated like a slab of meat by airport security.
Why do I do it? I’m trying to work hard and have enough money left over for my family after Barack Obama redistributes my wealth.
PROPOSITIONED
I would like to start this column with a prayer.
God, please put American Airlines out of business before they hurt someone. Amen.
Oh, while you’re at it, have the vice police raid the Hilton Hotel in the American Airlines terminal in Chicago. Amen again.
Is it just me? Has anyone been on a plane lately that took off at the time it was scheduled to take off and landed when it was supposed to land?
Last week I was pitching a new piece of advertising business in Fort Wayne, Ind. So on Wednesday night I went with two of my associates to LaGuardia Airport to catch a 9 p.m. American Airlines flight to Chicago. Now there was indeed an American Airlines flight that was leaving for Chicago at 9 p.m., but unfortunately that was the flight that was supposed to have left at 6 p.m. The 9 p.m. flight was scheduled to leave at 11:05 p.m. So it was after 1 a.m. when I arrived in Chicago and dragged my tired, slightly drunk ass to the Hilton Hotel, which is located right next to the American Airlines terminal. This may be one of the most successful hotels in the world because it’s obviously always packed with people who have missed their connections because of the perpetually late American Airlines flights.
I checked in and I got on the elevator to go to my room. It was packed with unhappy men grumbling about their flights. There was an attractive woman standing next to me dressed in a dark blue jump suit—I assumed she was working for the hotel.
She leaned close to me and said, “I love your suit.” Now you have to understand at that point my suit looked like an unmade bed. I was a rumpled mess. “Thank you,” I said. “You look tense,” she said. “When is the last time you had a massage?” “Never,” I mumbled. “I’ve never had a massage.” Now the elevator had reached my floor and the elevator door opened. I smiled and said, “Goodnight.”
Now my newfound friend followed me out the elevator. I started to get a bit suspicious. “I give massages and it’s clear you need one—you are too tense. That’s how you men die. Tension. You hold everything in and are too tense. Did you know the football player Walter Payton died when he was in his 40s and that ballplayer Ken Caminiti died when he was in his 40s?”
“They must have been flying American Airlines,” I thought to myself. She looked at me, smiled and said, “You must get a massage tonight. I don’t like that tension I see in your eyes.” I didn’t have the heart to tell her that she was making me tense. I was puzzled. Did she work in the hotel?
