American Airlines is pathetic. Last night's inhuman treatment of passengers started, as usual, when I arrived. The monitors told us our 4:10 flight would be seven minutes late. That was ominous -- normally they don't post a flight's lateness until the departure time has already passed (making it useless to check a flight's status before leaving for the airport).

Anyway, as we sat there waiting, the lateness kept getting updated, pushing the flight's expected departure time further and further toward evening. Then they started switching the gate on us: I think it changed four times in a matter of 10 minutes -- finally settling on a gate that was boarding a Toronto flight (another sign that we'd be even more late than the insufferable American Airlines was letting on).

When we finally did board the plane sometime around 5:30 I hoped to not have to sit too long in the tiny seat (kills my back and neck). But we certainly would sit there for a long time, buckled in and fuming. Would it have helped if the pilot had come on and told us we were 20th or 30th for takeoff? I don't know, because it was only about an hour later that he finally got on to tell us the runway had just been closed, probably due to the thunderstorm that was now arriving -- how thoughtful of American Airlines to time their delays in order to catch further delays!

Hey American Airlines: kiss my garlic ass.

I've decided that my next trip to the city will be by car: I'm not going to spend six hours enduring the indignities of strip-searches and airline delays when for an extra two hours and I can experience the boring autonomy of getting to my destination under my own steam, listening to my own music, and stopping to stretch when I see fit.

Other than travel, the trip was not bad: a glimpse of the extremely loud Dominican parade on Sixth Avenue, a reception at Tavern on the Green, a take-out dish of scungilli (which I've long been jonesing for -- but alas, the mid-town I-talian places don't serve it so I decided to go Chinese), and an aerial view of yesterday's evacuation of the Seventh Avenue subway station (I never trusted those escalators).

It's good to be home, though. I sleep better at Berea-Rose.