Dispirited Air

I've finally figured out why Spirit Airlines got its name-you'll need a litre of alcohol, not beer or wine, but the hard stuff, spirits, like esophageal scorching moonshine or mind altering absinthe to obliterate any memory of the flight.

Now, I've flown everything from People's Air, Lufthansa, Qantas to Air India, economy to first class, and everything in between, and no one likes getting a bargain better than me or my sisters, except for our father, who has his PhD in Parsimony, which is why we ended up on Spirit.

Hey, I've been drawn in by their seductive promises of $20.00 fares-who wouldn't?  I can't even get a pizza for that, and when my dad booked 5 round trip fares down to Fort Lauderdale for an upcoming cruise, my older sister, who was already down in the  Caribbean, could only howl with laughter and unleash a string of expletives.

"I flew them with our father just ... @*&^%$%$%^& once."

How bad could they be? 

We checked in, making sure we printed our boarding passes ahead of time since they'd charge us $10 if we hadn't. We unloaded our cases, ($50.00 extra for each of us, round trip) and flew into a pair of seats at a dingy little bar at 8.00 in the morning to celebrate our first vacation together since pigtails. 

Airport bars are like confessionals-you'll pour out your life story to the dude sitting next to you, to the bartender, to the couple sitting seats away, hoping you'll never see them again. And you can usually pick out the ones who are just starting their vacation; they're not slumped over in their seats playing Dots, or forlornly scrolling through their camera roll. No, they're upright, animated, and sucking down Bloody Mary's.

Like we were.

As a huge Boardwalk Empire fan, I had been dying to order a Bloody Mary like Nucky did last season when he said "Lighter on the bloodly; heavier on the Mary."

"Lighter on the bloody, heavier on the Mary"

And I did.

It's a good thing we knocked back a couple heavy Mary's, because as we headed toward the back of the plane, one row up from the toilets, deep in the aircraft's sphincter, either the seats had gotten smaller, or the people had gotten bigger.


As I sat down, my knees grazed the back of the seat in front of me, same for sissy.

I reckon I couldn't even floss between my knees and the seat.

We Cade girls are generously boned, sturdy, and will likely be able to use our husbands as barbells for our squats in a decade. Our femurs make up half our body length; I don't know what happened to our torsos, compact squares the size of  matchbooks, but it didn't matter. Our legs were the issue.

And you can't even say we're leggy because that implies we've got a set of great gams.

They're manly legs, working legs, legs of substance. Dominant leg genes that go back generations. And they weren't designed for Spirit.

No legs are.


Don't fart or sneeze, Sissy or else your knees will end up in Row 28 B's colon.

Okay, I'd just lower my seat, it would give me a few more inches. But there wasn't a button. I looked all over. Left. Right. Raised the arm rest, and ran my hand beneath. Nope. It wasn't even taped over or broken. No button.

That's like getting on an elevator without any buttons.

We sat as if we had sticks up our ass, which we did since we were immobile. 

Don't expect water, pretzels, soda or other snacks,  unless you're flexible enough to thread your arms into positions that are not humanly possible to find your handbag which is vice gripped between your legs, which are wedged between your seat and the row ahead. Forget about trying to get your wallet out of your back pocket.

Because those early morning heavy on the Mary's had turned us into raisins, and our tongues hanging out like thirsty dogs, I needed to chug some water.

But water is $3.00. No cash. Debit or Credit only. 

Well, maybe if I dehydrate just a bit more, I'll gain more legroom.

Need to relieve yourself?

Best to slip on a pair of Depends because by the time you extricate yourself from your seat, it may be too late. Besides, what's more shameful? Quietly peeing in your adult garments, or squashing your privates against a stranger's nose while trying to squeeze out of your row?

I'm pretty sure Spirit will start charging for the lavatory, so unless you have a cast iron bladder or bowel, get some training pants. 

But we soon put our experience behind us after we were spirited away into the cruising world aboard Royal Caribbean's Oasis of Seas, spending a majority of our days trying to find our way back to our stateroom, since our sense of direction fell short on the high seas.


After our maiden cruise, we lugged our suitcases up to the scale at the airport, lifting up each other's case trying to judge the weight and what we'd do if somehow we were over.

"If we are over fifty pounds, I'll start tossing dirty underwear out," I said.

"I'll put my dirty clothes into a plastic grocery bag and carry them on," Sissy said.

Turns out if we had stuffed some clothes into another bag, that's considered a second carry on-another $25.00 fee.

I'll start stuffing my shirt and pants with the extra clothes," I said. 

We're Cade's, and not only do we have cinder block legs, but we're cheap as hell.
 
As we placed our bags on the scale, we fell a few pounds shy of 50, roughly same as they weighed in at LaGuardia.

Phew.

"The bags are over 41 pounds. That'll be $25.00 each. Excess baggage fee." 

No traveller likes to hear those words.

When we tried telling her we hadn't been charged additional money when we checked in at LaGuardia, and hadn't even seen a sign, she didn't budge.

They've heard it all before. You've got to have a tough hide when you're wearing a Spirit name tag.

Being raised in a legal family makes you toss out words like "lawsuit, breach of contract, industry standards, restitution, summons and complaint, lack of conformity, bill of particulars, quid pro quo, and hourly rate" and any other legalese you can pull out of your ass even when it's not remotely applicable to the situation.
 
After waiting more than a half an hour to speak to a supervisor, and then spending minutes explaining to a cyborg that we hadn't been charged an extra fee, she stood her ground. Didn't smile, didn't offer apologies, didn't offer a compromise. Nothing.

"If you don't pay the fee, the bags stay here." 

She didn't even flinch when I told her I was going to charge her $25.00 because she kept us waiting, which was a substantial discount on my hourly rate. I threw in some legalese.


 I was in a stage iv public meltdown.


"Let's just throw our suitcases on the belt. Then we'll say they lost them and file a claim," I said to Sissy.



"Um, they wouldn't be in their system, and if we don't have proof that we actually checked our bags, we'd end up with nothing."

"Oh, yeah."

And that's what big Sissy's are for-they rein you in when no one else can. She yanked out her Amex card and paid the $50.00.

"I'll just contest the charge when the bill comes."

Several days after our return, Sissy forwarded a Spirit email with those teaser fares...and just like childbirth, where you forget how painful it really is, I lingered on their site.....eyeing the fares, wondering if I could swing a one week vacation in Guatemala.

We got the Spirit....