The Pink Shoe Diaries

i have a new favorite TV show, and it is Airline, on A&E. it's basically a reality show about people stranded at airports, running into travelling snafus, and how Southwest employees deal with it. i think i enjoy this show so much because i always run into problems when i fly. i have been

*bumped from a flight from San Diego and stranded overnight in Salt Lake City

*had my flight to London delayed 12 hours, and then was stuck in the plane on the tarmac for 3 hours while the flight attendants counted the "male to female" ratio on the plane because the computrers were down and they had to manually balance the weight by seating men and women alternately (men DO weigh 2.2 kilos more than women on average, so i am told)

*had my luggage lost en route from Boston to St Thomas

*gotten in trouble with Heathrow security when my carry on bag (which had been "inspected" at Logan, was found to have a camping knife in the exterior pocket (thanks Dad!)

*been stuck in Heathrow from 5PM to 1AM, then had my flight to Beirut rerouted to Amman, Jordan..where I was stuck in the Queen Alia Airport for an additional 4 hours.

*flown out of Beirut International Airport during a blackout.

in reality, i feel that these things happen because i am usually travelling with my mom, and with our foces combined we have terrible travellers luck. need i refer to the Food-Poisoning-In-Versailles incident of 1998?

all of which is to say, i think Southwest is the Walmart of airlines.