Dear Delta Airlines,

I can’t wait to spend the $100 you gave me! I’ll buy a video game and some scotch and do everything in my power to wipe the memory of that awful, awful experience from my mind.

What’s that?

You’re not actually giving me money? You’re instead giving me a voucher good for a ticket on an airline I’ll never willingly fly with again? A voucher that won’t actually do much to offset the cost of the ridiculous price airlines are charging these days for poor service, uncomfortable seats, and an almost sadistic commitment to not following a schedule?

No thank you.

You probably don’t remember me, so I’ll refresh your memory:

My wife and I were travelling to Hawai’i with her mother and father. They own a time share on the Big I and invited us to come along with them. We were quite excited. Paradise and all that. We flew from Cincinnati to LA and everything was relatively uneventful. LAX isn’t a bad airport, really and, it being in Los Angeles, there were some awesome fru fru restaurants in the terminal so we could nosh during the three hour layover. Things were pretty chill. We were just a scant six hours away from being back in the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen on this Earth and I was chilling near an outlet, allowing my precious iPhone the opportunity to recharge (air travel without Bejeweled is very much like SCUBA diving without a tank. Deadly). I looked over and not more than ten feet away was a haggard looking Aries Spears doing his best to relax and eat a salad. I almost, almost, asked him to do his Shaq impression but, at the end of the day, the guy was just trying to get to his next gig and eat some healthy food. No need to bug him. I’m sure when I’m rich and famous I’ll hate it when people bother me while I’m eating [EDITOR’S NOTE: This is factually incorrect. Elijah is never happier than when he’s performing].

The time came to board the plane and we all queued up. Before I move on, let me say something that has been bothering my Logistics Minded Brain for years now:

YOU CAN BOARD THE PLANE ABOUT 35% FASTER IF YOU BOARD FROM THE BACK OF THE PLANE, STARTING WITH THE WINDOW SEATS AND MOVING IN AND UP!

It’s so freaking simple! You can still let First Class on ahead of time, along with people with kids, members of the military in uniform, and old folks but after that just follow a seating progression that makes sense. Please. PLEASE!

Okay, back to the lecture at hand. We had all boarded, gotten our carry-ons stowed, adjusted the little fan to blow right in our faces, and were settling in for the five hour flight to Kona. The plane began inching away from the gate. I stifled a little squeal of excitement. Then we stopped. And sat there.

For an hour.

The Captain came over the PA system and said, “Uh… ladies and gentlemen, uh… this is the captain from the flight deck speaking, uh… we’ve got a problem with the quagulon servo motor indicating light [EDITOR’S NOTE: We allow Elijah to make up his own technical terms when he forgets the real ones] and we’re uh… just gonna wait for maintenance to come, uh… take a look.” So we sat there some more. Another hour to be precise. To be fair to the pilot, he was cool enough to come walking through the cabin and make some funny comments/allow us to ask him questions. I caught a glimpse of a couple of maintenance guys coming and going until, finally, after nearly another hour the captain came back on and said, “UH… Ladies and gentlemen this is the captain speaking from the flight deck, uh… looks like that quagulon servo motor indicator isn’t going to be able to be fixed on the tarmac so we’re, uh… we’re just gonna tug this bird back to the gate and, uh… get you on a new aircraft just as soon as possible.”

So we got towed back to the gate and de-planed. Now, at this point several people were grumbling about lost time and yadda yadda yadda. But, here’s the thing, Delta Airlines, I was okay with that particular delay. You and I both know that the indicator light in question was probably very similar to the oxygen sensor in any Ford vehicle made in the 90s. It screamed that something was wrong when, in fact, nothing was wrong. But when I’m travelling at several hundred miles an hour nearly ten miles in the sky I’m okay with being overly cautious.

So we head to the other gate. And here’s where I get a little fussy. There were no Delta employees there upon our arrival, so we had 296 (my party stayed behind because, as a veteran of airports, I knew this was too good to be true) people all thinking we should just walk down the jet way to the new plane. What those people didn’t know was that the plane at the end of the walkway was still full of passengers that were under the impression that they were going to Maui. See, Delta, you didn’t actually mention that the plane we were getting on was already fully boarded and about to take off to another island. You didn’t mention that we were about to usurp the flight of another group of 300 people that were also trying to get to their idea of paradise. Or home. Or meeting place. Or all three. So when 296 frustrated people were met with 300 frustrated people and they were travelling on an intersecting course there was trouble.

Mass confusion. Riots. Fires. Lions laying down with lambs! PANDEMONIUM! Finally, a Delta employee woke up from his nap and started helping people get separated into the two distinct groups at the gate waiting area and let everyone know we were going to re-board the plane just like any other flight (by the stupid and inefficient zone system, but I digress). More grumblings. At this point my blood sugar has crashed and, where I should have been eating pretzels and drinking a ginger ale, I was stuck in an uncomfortably warm LAX gate with 300 very irritated people. My wife, sensing that my eyes were about to turn grey and I was about to hulk out, quickly bought me some Jelly Bellys and a Popular Science to appease the raging monster inside me. Eventually, we get back in a plane, adjusted in our seats, and have the little fan blowing right in our faces. We’re now three hours behind schedule.

Deep breaths. Be calm. Five hours from now you’ll be back in Kona. It worked. I was calm.

And then we didn’t move. An hour later some lady comes on board to explain to us that she was so very sorry and, on Delta’s behalf would like to thank us for our continued patronage and we’ve been waiting for catering to get on board and she’s been authorized to give us all $50 visa debit cards in payment. At first I wanted to rage, but there’s enough of an American Capitalist in me to think about what a free and clear $50 could do. I was placated. Until…

Thirty minutes went by and we still hadn’t moved. Same lady comes on blathering on about the policies and procedures for keeping food on the plane and how it was going to take another 45 minutes to get food on board, unless everyone wanted to take off now, in which case we would. 300 people shouted in unison, “LET’S GO!” And she was appropriately terrified and indicated that we would be going very soon. She also told us that, due to the longer than usual delay (because this is a regular occurrence?) they were going to increase our credit to $100! I was thrilled! $100 bucks would come in handy on an island where a loaf of bread and a soda costs six bucks! And then…

“And, just to be clear, that $100 voucher is going to be good towards your next purchase of a Delta Airlines ticket purchase. We were going to give it to you in the form of a debit card, but they’re only good for 24 hours and nothing would be open by the time you get to Kona. We thank you for your consideration.”

My consideration had reached an end. I began fumbling with my seat belt, determined to stand up and cause a scene. “They’re good for 24 hours,” I was going to say. “We can use them tomorrow for breakfast! And lunch!” I was going to point out that among the things that were going to be closed you could list the rental car places and a $100 debit card would be nice to use for paying for a cab! I was ready to drop F Bombs in front of the sweet old lady sitting across from me, that’s how mad I was.

Instead, I had a mini-stroke due to a spike in blood pressure, my nose started bleeding and I passed out. I woke up in Kona, drooling all over myself and covered in dried blood. Someone had put a white sheet over me. They thought I was dead.

So, no, Delta, I won’t be redeeming that $100 voucher. And I’ll tell you what you can do with it: You can roll it up, turn it sideways and —

*has stroke* *passes out*

Love,

Elijah