My pacifiers - American Idol and jetBlue

I pledge to be a kindler, gentler Road Warrior 2007.

Case in point - when I was cut in the security line by not-my-fault late dude, who then asked me if I minded because he had a flight to catch in 10 minutes, I could have said something much ruder or snarkier than "It is what it is," but I didn't. I kept it at that.


We had a ground delay on the flight to Orlando on Wednesday. We boarded the plane about 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time, but I figured that was time that could have been made up in the air.

After getting situated on the plane, however, we had another delay - this one over an hour. Seated, at the gate, waiting. Apparently, a woman was not feeling well, and elected to deplane and not take the flight. Unfortunately for us, she elected to check the medication that was so critical to her health rather than, more smartly, carry it onto the plane. Why do people do this? It baffles me. I don't use my inhaler regularly, but when I bring it, I most certainly carry it with me. An asthma attack is much easier to remedy when you don't need to crawl into the cargo hull at 36,000 feet.

Of course, the delay was entirely manageable because I flew jetBlue, and their TV's were on from the moment we sat down. Live TV makes flights pass so quickly. Citizens of Airworld would be much happier and complain less if all airlines had this feature. Continental, my former BFF, would have fewer people complaining about their stuffed-to-the-gills cramped coach cabins if they had Live TV's.

The best part of the entire delay was that it put me in the air during almost the entire Wednesday 8-10pm American Idol episode. I kind of didn't want to deplane at 9:50, because I missed the end!