My Weekly Rant !!

September 1st '00

Ok so how rock n roll is this ? I’m currently sat on stairs in the airport writing this up-to-the-minute rant. So I thought I would recount about my time in America for another year.
Well no rant can go without mentioning my friend Kimberly. She was house sitting for the best dog. This thing was so scared it wouldn’t come out from under the bed the whole time we were watching a movie. Now this may not seem too odd but the thing had been under there for days ! No toilet break or anything, well none that we know of. And so I am still sat on the stairs at the airport and my butt is getting numb, and there is a lady walking around shouting out names.
Woohoo ok so the lady shouted my name, and came over to me, handed me my ticket and in a conspiratorial voice whispered “you’ve got a premium ticket” ! So off I skipped in an excited tone to the plane, 20 minutes before the time for takeoff (it was a *LONG* line) and got onto the plane all excited as I had spent the journey to the airport complaining that Bekki had “contacts” and had already been upgraded to premium. And now it was happening to me. I was gonna get on a plane after worrying that I wasn’t even going to get a seat, and I was going to get a premium seat. How cool!
But if you know me, then surely nothing can go quite so well on a travel. After all my other small misadventures, there has to be something. And I was thinking the same thing to. But it was looking good, I got on the plane and the stewards told me my seat was “right there on the right, by the window”. So I looked for seat 20A, and double checked, and checked again, and yep no matter how many times I looked at my seat, I couldn’t completely see my seat as there was a man already sitting in it. “Ahhhh” I thought, I see a problem arising now. I walked back towards the stewards who asked me “where was I going?” in a jokey tone. I asked once more where my seat was, the guy pointed and I said, “ahh you mean the one with the guy sat in it”. “Oh YES”. Yup there’s the problem. So the stewardess asked him for his boarding pass, which had a seat number on it, crossed out and “20A” written above it.
Ok I am standing, in premium, all excited but worried that I am about to be forcibly removed kicking and screaming from this hitherto unattained Holy Grail. I am stood in premium, I have been upgraded and my original ticket was bought from STA travel, a discount student ticket sale. I am actually stood in premium, and I have a ticket for a premium seat, it is almost like a dream, and so the stewardess walks back and I brace myself for those words “no sorry, you have to go to economy”, but hey I was close. I stood in premium.
And so she leans over to the guy sat in my seat and says to him “I am sorry sit, you have to go back to your original seat”. This is so cool, and so the guy leaves and I take my seat, in premium. So much comfort, the seat reclines further and has a cool footrest thingy that comes out from under the seat.
So all this, BUT I have no drink (everyone else has been offered a drink *before* takeoff, and I don’t have one of those utility bags that Virgin give to people. But “hey” I am thinking, I am sat in premium, no problem. Then I get offered a drink, orange or champagne. Well, I am sat in premium and things are pretty cool except for leaving America, so I have a glass of champagne to celebrate. And I even got a bag of stuff that they give out, as I think the previous occupier of my seat stole mine as compensation.
So my flight was great, the person next to me was very nice, and the movies were good, the flight was fast and I was sat in premium. Me in premium. Woohoo !! I cant really complain with that !!
So that is my story, another year in America. I have new gadgets to use as I can never have enough, this year involved a palm pilot, a cordless mouse (so I can finally use the mouse mat that Devon gave me) and a new telephone, I have finally entered the ‘double 0’s’ with a cordless phone too. So hey no complaints from me, and so I am off to Bristol UWE to study law for another year and see where that takes me, so stay tuned for stories of what happens postgraduate. And whether I fulfill my promises and join a soccer and volleyball team.

Darren