Mr Panty Waist Takes a Trip

Mr. Panty-Waist once had to take a trip to Florida for a client. He didn’t often travel for work outside of the city and I had a strong suspicion that any sort of travel that involved making informed decisions at chaotic locations such as airports, were a little beyond his brain capacity.

Before the Florida trip he had only one request - that he fly on Delta. Now, as it turned out, he didn’t request this for a sensible reason such as he collected Delta air miles or they offered him preferential treatment or something of that nature. No, he requested it for some completely random reason he pulled out of his ass, like “Delta have the most number of planes older than a year and younger than eight years, with rear-mounted engines, one cabin toilet per twenty passengers and which serve meals on a 2:1 meat:chicken ratio.” Mr. Panty-Waist was a tad nervous when it came to his feet being 30,000 feet in the air. It’s kind of ironic really, because that’s where his head was most of the time…

Whatever his strange reason I just muttered “Whatever, dickwad!” in the silent but mean little voice that lives in my head and called our travel department.

Ten minutes later he was all set with a Delta flight, bang on his time frame and I was about to relax with a Cognac and a cigar (or a tepid Diet Pepsi, whatever.) Fast forward five minutes. The itinerary had arrived from the travel department and out stomped Mr. Panty-Waist scrutinizing it, eyes about two inches from the page.
He started to make sounds like a constipated baby, which is a sure sign that something is not going swimmingly.

“This…this flight…” he whined. “This is not…what I wanted.”

“You wanted to leave around 2pm?” I asked.

“Yes but…*sigh*…”

“And you wanted to leave around 2pm on Delta?”

Huge sigh. “Yes. But…This…This isn’t right. This is…This is Delta Song This is not DELTA. What I’m saying is…this is…discount!”

He whined the word "discount" as though he were about to vomit on his own foot. If it were a physical thing it would be a steaming turd, held out in front of him at arm’s length.

You see Delta Song are the low cost branch of Delta. They’re a no frills, one class, cheap fared airline that gets you from A to B in a normal, chaotic, busy fashion without stuffing half cold meals down your throat or plying you with alcohol. In other words, it’s like flying coach on any other airline. However, as Mr. Panty-Waist’s motto is, “No first class, no point” he was less than thrilled with this arrangement.

“It’s either Delta Song or you fly coach on another airline.” I told him firmly. He made a face like he’d just discovered a dead rat in his pants and gave a snort of indignation.

I managed to find a flight on American but he refused it because, “I don’t fly on Airbuses and I need the engines on the wing.”

Yes, he said that.

Have you ever tried asking a travel agency, “So, what airline is it? What time does it get in? Is it an Airbus or a Boeing and I’m just curious, where does it keep its engines?”

As it happened, Delta Song was the only airline that would get the grouchy man to Florida at the right time so we had to book it. And the next paragraph is blissfully, 100% true.

The flight ended up being fully booked. It was delayed one hour. It was held on the runway for two more hours. He not only arrived in Florida three hours late and missed the meeting, he had to catch his return flight almost immediately and never left the airport. For the whole flight home, his six foot four frame was sat in a middle seat while a “Japanese child” sitting behind him, hit him over the head with her doll for the whole flight. Naturally, this was entirely my fault. Obviously, I had seated this child myself. In all honesty, I wish I’d thought of it.

For the remainder of the time I worked for him, every time we booked any sort of travel he always reminded me, like it was a bona fide option on a booking form, “I don’t want a seat with a hyperactive Asian child nearby.” like I could ask the travel agent to confirm that. "Aisle seat, check! Special meal, check! No Asian four year olds, check!"

I always meant to look that kid up and hire her for future flights. There were very few perks to my job after all and that would have been up there with a lotto win.