Where's my Seat?

In the last 4 days I have experienced the entire continuum of airline service.

Saturday I flew from Amarillo to Dallas on one of those smaller turbo-props with the wings on top of the fuselage. I arrived at the airport and hour ahead of departure, no bags to check so I retrieved my boarding pass from the little kiosk at the ticket counter. I noticed there was no one behind the counter, but didn't really think anything about it. They could have been on coffee break, or in the restroom, or just visiting in the back. I didn't need them, so I just noted it, sort of absentmindedly and moved on.

Got through security with usual comments about my driver's license picture (old film, long story, but I am green in the picture) Arrived at the gate, no one there. Hmm. This is odd, no gate agent, no passengers. I looked at my boarding pass again, yep, right date, right time, right gate. So where is everybody? Most of us live with the insecurity that the world around us "gets it" and we are left, sort of befuddled about the goings- on around us.
30 minutes later a guy shows up with boarding passes that had obviously been issued by a ticket agent.
"You on the flight to Dallas?"
"Yep"
"Did they tell you anything about it being late?"
"An hour"
"Thanks"
I love stimulating conversation. This guy was a regular talk-a-holic.

The plane finally showed and I looked around to find there were only a couple of people in the gate area. My executive platinum early boarding status wasn't going to mean much this time around. They called the flight, I was on first, then Gabby, and finally the other FOUR passengers. Thank goodness we had a 60 passenger plane! So they seated all of us in the last three rows...weight distribution, or easier work load for the flight attendant. Safety speech was little odd, the flight attendant stood in her usual place, which was 10 rows from any of us, reminded me of church classes where everyone sits in the back. It did occur to me that it would be a heck of a race to the "exit" row seats should something happen.

We took off, the flight attendant waited the requisite 15 minutes to serve us our beverage. You would think with that few passengers she would interact a little, but apparently she and Gabby were first cousins, set my Pepsi down, went to the back and never saw her again until we were ready to land and she had to grudgingly pick up the empty cans and cups. Obviously American doesn't share the "friendly skies" with United.

Tuesday morning, flying to L.A., upgrade to first class, breakfast, coffee, hung up my jacket. Now, this is flying!

Godspeed,
Don