Relatively Easy Travel

I'm at a new location, and I've been having trouble establishing and maintaining an Internet connection, so this will probably be shorter and sweeter than I would've preferred. Mrs. Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk and I were traveling today, and I was all prepared to talk about the airlines' "Summer from Hell," when all of a sudden we had a reasonable flight. O'Hare airport had too many employees more interested in maintaining their lines than in actually helping customers, We left the gate only about ten minutes late, and although we seemed to be in a line of about half a dozen jets waiting to take off, that line ran smoothly, and we were in the air at about the time we should've been.

Oh, sure, the seats were cramped, and they didn't have as full service a drink collection as we would've liked, but all in all not too bad. The pilot even seemed to have the correct grasp of the situation when he announced at the beginning of the flight that the service crew was there in an attempt to make our journey "somewhat comfortable." They're charging to make us somewhat comfortable, though. One thing that I noticed at the airport was an opportunity we were given when we checked in. Would we be willing to pay an extra $29 or so for a few extra inches of leg room in the cabin? We passed on the idea, but when we got on the plane, we were seated behind the emergency exit row. For various important and significant reasons, there's always more room in those rows, but it made we wonder if those were the seats they were offering at a premium price.

Although it was still a beautiful day in Chicago when we taking off, it was apparently only a couple of hours before storms moved in again in late afternoon, and from what I heard, these storms were worse than what we've been seeing in the area lately. Tornado warnings were all over the place, and one was actually reported in a western suburb. But most significantly for our travel agenda, only about an hour and a half after we left, O'Hare suspended all flights and evacuated the control tower. That's not entirely unheard of, but it's extremely rare. Fortunately for Mrs. Talk Talk Talk Talk Talk and I, however, by that time we were well on our way in our somewhat comfortable flight that didn't seem like it had come from hell at all.