Rant: Baggage Allowance

Recently I booked a long haul flight on an established airline. This flight was not cheap. Irregardless I was looking forward to visiting my family and friends and picking up some stuff that I left behind when I moved to England three years ago. I have travelled on this airline many times in the past and despite the jacked up prices and complete and utter lack of comfort, I have continued to book this airline because of its generous baggage allowance compared to its discounted competitors.

Out of curiousity I double checked the weight allowance today (1 day before my flight) to discover that this airline has recently changed their allowance to ONE checked bag. If I wish to bring a second bag I may do so (clearly not a weight issue) but I must pay them £50 each way for this priveledge. Excuse me? Haven't I just paid you a gross amount of money to fly to another continent? Surely that entitles me to a 2 bag allowance. After all, this is hardly a weekend getaway on a cheap airline.

What really grinds my gears (!) is that first class passengers are allowed THREE bags per person and each bag can weigh up to 70lbs! Sorry that I (a mere working class hero) am unable to afford the astronomical first class fee and must pay out my entire monthly salary to travel Economy.... but surely you can allow me to bring a reasonable amount of luggage at no additional cost?

So, alas, annoyed as hell, I emptied out the contents of my suitcase and attempted to reduce my packing to a ridiculously small ammount of clothing for a 2 week trip abroad in an attempt to free up 'weight' for the things I need to bring back.

What money making scheme will airlines come up with next?

• A charge for seats in the waiting area.
• A fee to use the on-board toilets.
• Pay-per-view movies.
• Pay for the right to get on and off the plane first.
• A service charge for airline attendants.

Things That Annoy Me (Volume 30)

A deep apology to my four devoted fans for my lack of blogs.... Here it is, more things that annoy me!

1. The Brits charge a yearly TV License to any home in the UK with a television. This applies whether you just watch the 5 channels provided, have a freeview box, or subscribe to a satellite company. Apparently this fee is charged because the BBC provides commercial-free television. I would much rather watch a few commercials (and have a potty break!!!) than drop 100 quid a year to the BBC.....

2. Cyclists. When crossing the street or walking on the pavement it is not motorists that I fear, it is cyclists!!!! Are you driving on the street or the sidewalk? MAKE UP YOUR MIND! If you are driving on the street, you should be obeying the laws of the road (i.e. when the cars riding in the same direction as you and have a red light you are also meant to stop....). I should not be clipped by a motorist as I cross the street on a green man just because they're in too big of a rush to stop at the red light. Furthermore, if I am walking on the sidewalk, I do not need to be beeped at by cyclists coming from behind (since they are SUPPOSED to drive on the road) nor should I almost be knocked down by an oncoming cyclist who (GOD FORBID) cannot be bothered to apologize after nearly killing me on a sidewalk!

3. There is a quiet sidestreet in Chelmsford right by the railway station. I have to cross over it every day to get to the station. However, cars are always turning into it to drop people off at the station. They never stop and let pedestrians cross nor do they even bother to slow down and look for pedestrians. Rather, they treat this left turn as though it is part of the straight road they were previously travelling on and not a separate road entirely. This is especially annoying when it is pouring rain and I am WALKING to the station and have to wait for all these stupid cars. It is also very annoying when I am crossing and a car that has whizzed down the road BEEPS at me to get moving. FUCK OFF.

4. Teenagers on public buses. Enough said.

5. The other day I read this article about a family (from another country) who had 7 children and were being put up in a 1 million pound council house and receiving something like 180 000 pounds a year in benefits. They'd been here for 7 years and several of their children were past the age of dependency yet they were still receiving benefits for these children. Another family with 11 children were complaining that their council house was 'too small'. HELLO. Stop having a million children, get a job, and pay your own way. Meanwhile I am working my ass off, paying a fortune in taxes, and am now required to fork over almost 600 quid to stay in this country. Apparently I should have just blown out college, popped out a bunch of kids, and reaped the benefits!

Fat is the new Skinny (or is it?)

It seems the biggest thing these days is to be big. All the fashion mags are saying that curvy is delicious, there are a hundred shows devoted to making 'bigger' women look good on T.V., and curvy celebs are getting noticed. (Let's be honest here, CURVY is just a nicer word for chubby....).

Every women's magazine these days seems to devote at least one article to loving your body, eating disorders, improving self-confidence, or some other body issue - telling women that big is beautiful. Then, just as you're feeling all warm and fuzzy, you turn the page to be confronted with a ten page fashion layout featuring size 0 women in clothes a woman with even an ounce of fat would look hideous in. Is it just me, or is this all a bit hypocritical?

Now, to be fair, most fashion labels only offer sample clothing in size 0s so that the magazines are forced to hire models who fit in these clothes (as just photographing clothes on hangers might not have the same effect...). But let's be realistic... fashion magazines are, essentially, one big advertisement for fashion labels, cosmetics, and perfumes. If the magazines refused to photograph uber skinny models and didn't print ads featuring toothpick women, the labels would, in turn, be forced to meet magazines demands as they do make up a huge chunk of their advertising and sales. Of course, more than one magazine would have to commit to this viewpoint for it to work, but really, is it so difficult to take a stand and make an attempt to feature women from a size 0 to a size 20? If these magazines are attempting to reach an audience of women of all sizes, shouldn't we see our body types featured in them (and not just on the 'beautiful at any size' featurettes!)?

The women's magazine industry has preached total body acceptance long enough. It's time for them to practice what they preach!

The Perils of the Gladiator Boot

Don't get me wrong, I think the gladiator sandals are cute. In fact, I own a pair! But the gladiator sandals have morphed into something more extreme. The gladiator boot.

There are many versions of the gladiator boot, each as hideous as the first. Basically, the gladiator boot began as a gladiator sandal that morphed into something much more extreme.

What I think it most disturbing about the gladiator boot, is all the holes and crevices for fat calves to hang out of (because you know someone with chunky calves is going to buy these boots). Really they remind me of something a monster would wear in a horror movie.

But when you think about it, the gladiator boot is probably more historically realistic than the gladiator sandal. I mean really, can you picture big, burly gladiators heading off into a war with flimsy little sandals on their feet? Most likely they wore boots just like these! Their big, muscular calves bulging out of all the little crevices. A rash forming where sweat has gotten stuck behind all the leather bits. Later, after the war, the gladiators would peel the leather gladiator boots from their bloody, war-torn skin. A real sexy image. However, most drawings depict gladiators wearing sheilds strapped onto their shins (just imagine if this had become the trend!!! you would see all these skinny, petite fashionistas trying to haul themselves around with shields heavier than they are strapped onto their scrawny legs!).

Anyway, as I was doing my normal patrol of the mall today (or whatever you English folk want to call the place with all the shops), I spied the gladiator boots in a high end shoe store. I think you have to see it to believe how ugly it really is. This particular boot had ties up the front (like the kind of boots Goths wear) and in the back it had a big zipper!!!! I wanted to try it on just for a laugh (but didn't, because the bitches who work at this shoe store look like they have never had a laugh in their whole lives). This made me think about what people might wear with the gladiator boots (this summer's sexiest accessory).

Some ideas:

Gladiator Boots + a Prom dress (just don't trod on your date's feet)

Gladiator Boots + Hot Pants (distract wandering eyes from your cellulite)

Gladiator Boots + A String Bikini (a sexy twist on beach ware)

Gladiator Boots + Five Sticks of Black Eyeliner (see the Olsen twins for inspiration)

Oh yes.... have I mentioned the average price of the Gladiator Boot? For this shockingly hideous footware, be prepared to shell out in excess of 60 quid. A real bargain.

It's in the Small Print ... (and other bullshit)

Is it just me, or are more and more companies relying on the phrase 'well it IS in the small print' to get away with robbing dutiful citizens of their hard-earned money?

Case in point:

I joined this fitness emporium one holiday when I was feeling particularly elephantesque. They signed me up for all this crap, charged the usual fees, blah, blah, blah. So there I am signing on the dotted line for my THREE-MONTH membership babbling on about how I only plan to do three months because I might be moving back to my homeland while this knob of a 'customer service rep' smiles at me (because really he's thinking 'I might go on a holiday with the commission I am making off you). Anyway... flash to three months later (during which I may have visited this gym three times total). I've paid for my three months and I am now thinking I am done with this gym....

Right.

I check my account on the 1st of the month and the damn gym has taken out another payment for a fourth month. So I ring them up, explain nicely that I don't want a fourth month, could I please have my money back? Well, no, I can't have my money back because the payment has already gone through. FURTHERMORE I am expected to come in to the gym to sign a form to cancel my membership (this is the three month membership I have signed up for that, it turns out, is actually not for three months but for an unspecified length of time).

So I trot down to the gym shortly after this phone call only to be told that I need to make an appointment to cancel my membership (they apparently could not divulge such confidential information on the telephone). At this point I may have slightly lost my temper on the bimbo blonde desk girl with the spider-leg eyelashes (that much mascara should be illegal). The only thing this girl is apparently able to say, however, is 'well, it IS in the small print'.

Right.

The next day I reappear at this gym (really, I've now visited more as a non-member than a member!) for my appointment with a 'manager' (one of many people hired to deal with cranky customers but not an actual manager). I state my case, get the fine print crap again, blah blah blah. Then this guy tries to SELL ME AN EXTENDED MEMBERSHIP! I'm standing there pissed off, on the verge of enraged, trying to cancel this bloody membership when I was clear I didn't want to go past three months (you would think that would be a good time for the sales rep to mention the cancellation policy....) and this greasy loser is trying to SELL ME something. Then I was really pissed. And to top it off, I had to tell the guy THREE TIMES I wasn't interested.

Now here is the real icing on the cake....:

Because I did not cancel my membership by the last day of the month, I am now expected to pay for a FIFTH month! I come down there less than twenty four hours after the day and am expected to dish out 40 quid more for being one day late.

FUCK OFF.

Anyway, after my account was charged this fourth payment, I did have a look at the fine print. What I discovered (as I suspected I would), is that is it IMPOSSIBLE to understand. There are so many 'except when' or 'in the case of' or 'excluding clause 4' that no human being who didn't spend time in some sort of law school could possibly be expected to decipher the damn thing. I don't consider myself to be thick, but seriously. Not to mention the fact that you practically need a magnifying class to read the small print (because it really is SMALL).

I really don't understand why guy number one (who, consequently, disappeared into employee quarters when he saw me walk through the door to cancel my membership) couldn't take ten seconds out of his busy schmoozing day to inform me of the cancellation policy. PARTICULARLY when we were sitting there discussing how I may possibly move back to Canada in July (I guess he thought I would want to keep paying for a gym membership from abroad?). I also don't understand why chick on the phone could not inform me that I needed to make an appointment to cancel my membership on the phone instead of waiting until I walked twenty minutes to get there so she could inform me in person. Nor do I understand why fake manager guy thought it would be appropriate to try to sell me a membership when I was clearly pissed off at the company as a whole.

Is customer service really that difficult a concept (I mean, they all have customer service something or another stamped onto their nametags)? Clearly the commission outweighs customer satisfaction.

At the end of my 'appointment' (which basically means the fake manager guy accepted that I wouldn't be buying anything from him and signed the damn form) he gave me a number of another 'manager' to contact. His exact words were 'ask for so-and-so, he is good at dealing with these types of issues' (which to me clearly indicates I am not the first person to experience dissatisfaction with the cancellation policy).

The moral of the story (and this is for sales reps everywhere): take the TEN FREAKING SECONDS to clearly articulate your company's cancellation policy. It's not hard.

But this is what really kills me.... you know that if the same thing happened to these pricks who can't be bothered to tell you how it is, they would be right in there yelling and screaming about how their rights have been violated in some way.

All I have to say to this company as a whole is FUCK YOU.

I'm Surprised I Didn't Kill Someone Today.... People I Hate on Public Transportation

It must be just about 'that time of the month' because it seems I am crankier than usual lately!! My current state of rage is not helped by my daily journey on London's public transport systems. Let's just say a few people are very lucky they did not get clobbered today.

1. Sometimes when there are no seats on the train, I am forced to stand in some squashed corner of the doorway for the 15 minute train ride to Shenfield. Now, first of all, aren't I paying a MILLION quid a week for a bloody train ticket???? For the dear price I pay, you would think that would earn you a SEAT on the train. But no. Anyway, I've gotten over that bit. I console myself by thinking, 'well, at least you will be the first person off the train'. You would think that anyway, since I am pretty much standing pressed up against the door (sometimes I have visions that the door malfuntions and opens whilst the train is speeding down the track, throwing me to my painful death!). I might get off first, if the doorknobs who have been sitting for the past 30 minutes, didn't jump up and shove their way to the front. Sometimes I feel like pushing them out of my way, like you do when you are five.

2. The school children who ride the train and/or bus act like it's their first day out in humanity after landing in England on the raft they have been sailing on for the past 13 years of their life. Is it necessary to SCREAM conversations at each other. Don't they know I am trying to peacefully read my book?

3. I hate when people reading newspapers think that gives them the liberty to take up half the space in the cabin. Do you really need to spread the newspaper as wide as it will go without ripping? Likewise, do you need to poke me in the side EVERYTIME you turn the page (and not once say sorry).

4. I realise I get off at an obscure train stop... but I don't understand why the people who get on at that stop can't move out of the way so I can exit the train in peace. Instead I practically have to knock down people to get off the bloody train. And then, after I push through the WALL of human beings, I have to avoid being knocked down by people who are sprinting down the platform trying to get in an emptier car because they couldn't get their lazy asses there a few minutes earlier. Even worse, are the morons who fly down the stairs with no respect for people climbing up them trying to catch a train that has already started MOVING OUT OF THE STATION.

5. When lots of people get off the train at the same time and start moving down the staircase people seem to think that the hundreds of people in front of you will move along faster if they practically walk on your feet. I have visions of myself being pushed down the stairs and commuters walking over my bleeding, broken body instead of missing their train to help me.

6. BIKES ON THE TRAIN. The train is crowded in the morning. Can't you leave your bike at the station and WALK to work when you get to London?

7. PRAMS ON THE BUS. They take up enough room for ten passengers (since people seem to only buy prams the size of small cars these days).

8. I don't understand why people under the age of 20 can't sit in a seat on the bus unless they are sat next to their friends. Instead, the bus pulls up and all you can see is a wall of humans pressed against the windows and doors and you think to yourself, 'fucking hell'. But you've been waiting for the bus for 15 minutes, so you squeeze yourself on. As you're standing there, trying to stand straight as you have nothing to hold onto, you start to notice that there are about 65 seats available at the back of the bus and about half as many people standing blocking your way to the empty seats. SIT IN THE DAMN SEATS.

9. I always have about ten bags going back and forth to work. I will put them in my lap or on the floor if the bus/train is empty. However, if there are about 5 people on the bus/train, I stick them in the seat next to me. When there are 45 seats available, is it really necessary to rudely ask me to move my stuff so you can sit there. Is it a lucky seat or something?

10. This wasn't actually on the train or bus, but was in my in between snack stop, so I am counting it anyway. I go into this shop for a little bag of chips and have my money ready to pay. This woman and her two brats are choosing candy. One hasn't decided yet, so the lady tells me to go first. As I am waiting for my change, this little boy says to me, 'HURRY UP LADY'. Instead of slapping the rude bastard, the woman (WHO TOLD ME TO GO FIRST) says, 'it's not the lady's fault, it's Adam's' and the little knob says, 'YES IT IS THE LADY'S FAULT. HURRY UP LADY'. Now, if that was my child I would certainly not be buying them the chocolate bar, nor would I let it behave so rudely in a public place. This is a prime example of why some teacher's eventually end up on stress leave. Because parents let their children run the show. If that child was in my class, he would have been sitting in the detention room with no chocolate.

A True Story of Self-Deprecation

Ok. Have you ever pined away for someone for an eternity with no result? Slept with them a million times only to get a nice 'it's been great, let's do it again'. And you think to yourself, well, they must like you. They keep calling you, don't they? But then you think to yourself... hmmmm, no one actually knows this relationship exists except for the two of you and all your dates seem confined to his bedroom... and so you begin this process of self-loathing. Yeah, I'm good enough to sleep with but apparently not good enough to be seen with in public. I'm like a hooker who doesn't even get paid. I must be ugly. No, I must be disgusting. And not only am I hideously ugly but I also have such a terrible personality that I can't even win him over with that.

Eventually, after many tears and many calls to girlfriends who are sick and tired of hearing about this tumultuous love affair, you decide OK I am going to sever ties once and for all. Perhaps you move to another town or another continent. You're off living your life. New job, new friends, new man. Life is good. You've all but forgotten about He Whose Name Shall Never Be Mentioned. Then, the icing on the cake.....

One day you're browsing on facebook and up pops a picture of HWNSNBM and his new GIRLFRIEND (by gf, I mean a person who has actually prompted him to change his facebook status to In a Relationship when the whole time you were sleeping with him it was a great big fat blinking SINGLE). And you think to yourself FUCKING EH (not to be petty or anything), I AM MUCH BETTER LOOKING THEN THIS (at least I hope so).

This is when the real self-loathing begins.

At least if new girlfriend was a searing hot beauty then you wouldn't feel THAT bad. I mean, then you would know that he just had really impossibly high standards.... But when someone is not as good looking as you then you really start to wonder do I just think I'm better looking (when really I'm not). And is my personality really SO bad that even that couldn't win him over (as clearly looks are no longer a major factor).

And then, as though you're not feeling badly enough already, you feel even worse that (a) you're sitting here writing a nasty blog about some poor girl you don't even know, (b) it affects you this much after all this time, and (c) the secret dream you've been harboring that you will lose 20 pounds, get a new haircut, and sidle back into town and win this bloke over is now clearly a pipe dream as it is quite obvious that if you couldn't win his love in 5 years and new girlfriend is no supermodel anyway then perhaps HE JUST ISN'T THAT INTO YOU.

It's a hard pill to swallow. Guess I'll need a big glass of water.