Trying to redeem airline miles

The airlines want you to be a loyal customer, so if you fly over and over with the same airline, they give you miles in their frequent flier program. That's supposed to be a reward for being a loyal customer. But try to redeem the miles, and a reward can turn into a headache.

My wife and I are flying to Vegas in November, so in July I'm trying to make plans to pay for coach and upgrade to first class for some extra room and maybe a snack I don't have to pay for (sort of).

Let's take Delta first. I called and spoke to Betty. Betty was Betty like I'm Sameer. But no matter... I tried to upgrade to first class. Everything went okay until she told me the price for 2 coach tickets from Hartford to Vegas: $1400. "Wait a minute," I said, "online it says something like $400 per person, not $700 per person". "Oh," she said, "upgradeable coach costs more than non-upgradeable coach". "So I have to pay lots more in order to redeem the miles I earned for being a loyal customer?" "Yes". NO THANKS!!!

Now for America West/US Air. I called them and asked to upgrade, but they had no seats available. I was told that there are plenty of seats in first class right now, and as it gets closer to departure if they don't sell out I can try to upgrade again. So you want me to book in coach now, with no guarantee of being able to upgrade later? And you are holding a bunch of seats in first class open but you won't give me a couple because you hope someone else will come along and pay big bucks for them? And you want me to keep flying with America West and you'll reward me with more upgrades you won't actually give me? GREAT!!!

That really burns my ass!

The tax code

When it takes more than 2 pages to describe the tax code, I figure it's too complicated. How many thousands of pages is our tax code now? Ridiculous!

How about this for a new tax code?

1. If you live below the poverty line as set by government, you pay no income tax.
2. If you are above the poverty line and make less than 2 million a year, you pay 10% of your income. No deductions, no nothing. 10% of your total income.
3. If you make more than 2 million a year, you pay 10% on the first 2 million and 90% on the rest. How much freaking money do you need a year to live on?

Pretty simple, right?

People who play 2 (or 3) slot machines at one time

Are they greedy? Compulsive? Just plain rude?

When it's busy and other people can't find even 1 machine, why should they be playing 2? Sometimes when we pass one of these rude people I'll say to my wife, in a louder than normal voice "Too bad her arms aren't longer... then she could play 4 machines at a time."

People who leave shopping carts in parking spaces

Have you ever been to the supermarket and started to turn into a parking space only to discover some fat-ass lazy bastard left a shopping cart smack in the middle of the space?

How RUDE! Does it really take that much energy to walk your cart a few steps to the cart collection area when you are done loading your car? Do you think you're better than the next guy who will try to park there? Is it your right to leave anything you damn well please anywhere you damn well like? Yeah, and I bet you're a smoker too...

Smoking in public places

Don't get me started.

I don't know what makes smokers think they have the right to foul the air I breathe. The effects of secondhand smoke are well documented... it takes a certain kind of self-serving rudeness for smokers to subject me to their smoke.

I have nothing against smoking. If smokers want to smoke in their homes or walk around with a bubble on their head so their smoke doesn't affect the rest of us, smoke away! Have a blast! Smoke your brains out! But don't let your smoke blow in my face. It makes me sick to my stomach, it causes me sinus infections, and it's just plain nasty.

Here in Connecticut all our restaurants are smoke-free, thank God. New Jersey is about to go that way at midnight tonight, and pardon the pun but I think a lot of people in New Jersey are going to be breathing easier. The next step is to make the casinos smoke-free. There will doubtless be opposition to that, because some people think they can't gamble without a cigarette in their hand, but they'll get used to it.

Automated email responses

And another thing...

How about those automated email responses that don't answer the question you asked in the first place?

I ask very simple questions that a human should be able to answer in one sentence. I asked Wal*Mart if the store they are about to build in my town will be a Supercenter. Pretty easy question, right? You don't need a PhD to answer it, right? Do you think I got a one-sentence answer? Or an answer to my question at all? Of course not. I got an automated reply that told me where to go (on the web) to find the answer. And of course when I went there the web didn't have an answer for me either. Instead of them telling me where to go, I'd like to tell them where to go!

And today I got an "answer" from Atkins in response to my asking where in my zip code I can buy a certain type of ice cream they sell. Instead of punching in my zip code and the item I want to buy, so they can actually answer my question, their computer must have recognized "where" "buy" "Atkins" and told me that their products are sold in 30,000 retail stores in the United States. That's great for them, but I'm just looking for their fudge pops and the trip to the store has to be short enough so that they don't melt on the way home. They gave me a 4-paragraph "answer" that didn't answer anything. Part of the "answer" was that I can order products from them online. When was the last time any of you bought ice cream mail-order? Ridiculous. Thanks, Atkins, for being the latest in a long line of clueless companies who take the Service out of Customer Service.

That really burns my ass!

Highway repair

I'd like to know why a billion-dollar hotel/casino can be built in a year but patching a small stretch of highway takes 8 years. That really burns my ass!!!

A hotel has steel, plaster, electrical, plumbing, elevators, restaurants, doors, windows, carpeting, sprinkler systems, heating, cooling, and so on. A highway has steel and pavement. That's it! How long does it take to put steel up and slap some pavement around it? And when I drive by the repair zone, usually nobody is working. Or if there are people working, one is working and the rest are supervising! That really burns my ass!

Thoughts?