We made it back! The Tupperbaby is an incredibly understanding traveler, though we did run into several issues unrelated to the baby.

You see, when Reagan fired those 11,000 air traffic controllers for striking, it had knock-on effects throughout the industry that caused permanent damage to not only that industry but to the labor movement writ large. This was followed by a series of recessions, terrorist attacks, recessions, coronaviruses, and recessions have kept the remaining airlines confident that they can get away with poor behavior because the government will just bail them out with no consequences. So now they’re just not afraid to funnel all their money right back to executives and shareholders.

Fast forward my whole fucking life and now every time we fly there’s at least one 3-6 hour delay. And that’s what happened this time! American Airlines decided that a delay of 6 hours did not justify a refund, just a rescheduling at most. No reimbursements whatsoever and they nearly lost our kid’s car seat. Luckly for us many airlines, including American decided that it would be better to buy back their own stock than make improvements to their infrastructure or do anything more than the standard landlord “thick coat of paint” on their existing fleet. As such, our flight out of Texas (the most important one) was delayed 6 hours because their ancient planes continue falling apart and they don’t have enough parts or technicians to address the issue at this point.

It’s just embarassing. We live in a damn failed state. It’s only a matter of time before it all falls down.