My bad travel karma continues. I must have refused to pay a travel agent the 25 dinar fee for reserving me a camel in a previous life (and it would have been a middle seat in the back of the camel). Got to the airport early, which was fortunate since I beeped going through security and was subjected to the TSA's version of slap and tickle. The flight itself was uneventful, although US Airways sky waitresses once again were reluctant to leave their seats to actually serve a glass (of probably contaminated) water.

We got off the plane and trudged to the alleged baggage carousel (such a pleasant name for such a thoroughly unpleasant piece of apparatus). Within 10 minutes of waiting we were told "Just kidding!" by those fun folks at the Worst Airline in the World. Like lemmings, we shuffled a few dozen yards to the west and stood staring as the silver plates ground by, devoid of our luggage. After another 45 minutes of uproarious merriment, a voice from the ceiling told us that, uh, well, it seems that after our bags had been snugly loaded into the belly of the plane out in San Diego, a-hem, the plane was a tad, well, overweight, bordering on morbidly obese, and since, uhh, cargo is actually revenue generating and baggage is only ephemerally linked to the people who PAY FOR THE FUCKING TICKETS, well, a small number, nay, a miniscule number of bags were, to use the technical term, "offloaded" and remained to enjoy the sunshine and warm temps in southern California. The bags will have their last margarita, take one more picture of palm trees, and bid farewell this evening, arriving safely at our respective homes by sometime tomorrow. As long as we're home to greet them, or have a "protected area" available for delivery (the baggage clerk could not define what that meant, but she was adamant about it).

I've tried to support US Airways - I've flown them 38 times in the past year, have encouraged my employees to use them even when they did not have the most convenient routes, have stood in their lines, suffered the incompetence, gross stupidity, ineptitude and apathy of their employees, have waited for luggage for countless hours, bought a membership to their airport club, listened to their endless litany of excuses about flight delays (lavatories are full, sensors are on that shouldn't be, the baggage hasn't been loaded, the doors won't shut, the doors are stuck, the crew isn't here, the crew is tired and cranky, the food hasn't arrived, the plane is out of toilet paper, the catering company has gone out of business, and on and on and on), been crammed into seats that are inhumanly narrow, and have kept believing they were worth supporting as one of the largest employers in Pennsylvania. That ended after this week's multiple fiascos. US Airways - their employees and their management team and their unions have all lost my support.

Of course, that's after I drain my Dividend Miles account of every last mile and smile when the FOR SALE sign goes up on the detritus of what could have been a great airline.