I was up in Chicago the other day and when flying back home on a 9:00 am flight I noticed a woman, seated on a stool at one of those bars located alongside the boarding gate, with a plastic cup with reddish liquid in it and a straw. She’d walked by me, while I was seated at the gate, a few minutes before and stood out for me because, by the look of her face, I judged her probably to be rather younger than she seemed, maybe having lived a hard life, making her 40 or so years look 60 or more. So I guess seeing her seated at the bar, three hours before noon, confirmed a quick judgment I’d already formed based on how she appeared.
She was having a bracer before the flight, no doubt.
One for the road. Continue reading “Profiling Bloody Mary”
Every time I fly I get a kick out of seeing the lengths to which the airlines go to create the impression among passengers that their (sometimes significantly) higher fees have consequence that matters (other than generating more profit for the airline, of course). Example: no longer do just the first class passengers board early but so do a host of variously privileged, hierarchically-arranged sub-categories that previously never existed, each getting their little perk in exchange for their higher fees, customer loyalty, or using the airline’s own credit card to book the flight: Platinum Club Members step up after those in First Class, then (in a ranking system