There are only two emotions in a plane: boredom and terror. ~Orson Welles

I've got a third: anger.

Travel is SOOOOO overrated these days. Maybe it's because I've done so much of it. Mind you, not as much as frequent flayers with millions of miles that they can't even use. But at least twice a year, enough to see the changes in air travel.

I mean, think about this; you carefully pack your bag, only to have some stranger rifle through it. You submit to having your purse overturned and pawed by some surly TSA agent. Don't get me started about body scans! I was accused at one point of the possibility of my tin, punch out ornament, a gift for my mom, could slit some one's throat.

Merry Christmas - kiss my mistletoe, you over paid, under educated, mall cop!

There's another descriptive word for the above: a MUGGING! But not in an airport. Oh no! You pay WAY too much for THIS kid of treatment. On average a ticket out of Syracuse costs me $400. I'm lucky if I can get anything less than that. And that's not a "gas hike" problem. Oh no...it's been that way for years! Now I get to add a $25 charge for my bag. What....$400 wasn't enough for my bag AND my ass? Cuz I know when I use to give you $400 you use to take my bag, feed me some sort of food, mind you it was Barbie sized. But it was actual food. Now they offer a "snack box". I did that once and it won't happen again. My wife and I had to run to our connected flight, not getting a chance to eat. We opted for the $12 Cheese box. That worked out to a $1 per square of cheese and the 6 crackers were free. And no lie....4 grapes. F-O-U-R!

And while the airline version of a "pillow and blanket" were more like a Stayfree pad and a dyer sheet - at least you got them!

They use to have free movies and charge you a couple bucks for the headphones (that you had to leave on the plane, cuz the jack on them never fit in anything else.) Now they give you FREE headphones, that have a normal plug to be used again. Fantastic, right? No, cuz you have to swipe your credit card if you want to actually WATCH a movie that could cost you from $6 - $10. That's not happening

When they said they were doing away with all that...I thought, "Great! I'll be flying for like....$200 now!" mmmmmmmNOPE! I pay for my butt, my bag and a female TSA agent to feel me up cuz my jeans are baggy.

Buying a hooker, for that last part, would actually SAVE me money.

Let's talk about the planes for a minute. Cuz it use to be that you could luck out once and a while and actually get an open seat. Not no more! Over booked by 10....every flight. I transport myself right back to math class when they announce, "The flight is overbooked and we are looking for passengers to go on a later flight." It's like Mr. Hern in algebra asking for someone to do the equation on the board. I slump down in my seat, turn my iPod up and bury my face in the book.

I just gave you $425, was strip searched, and my LL Bean leatherman confiscated and probably re-gifted to that TSA agents father in law, so you could tell me that I don't even get the flight I paid for?

Momma doesn't think so!

That's a LOT of strikes against the airline industry. So you can understand how shocked I was, when my wife and I got on our last flight, recently, and a WHOLE ROW of seats were missing! When I made the reservations, I picked two seats on the left side of the plane. When we got on....there was ONE row on the left side.

A WHOLE ROW WAS GONE! We had to sit across the isle from each other. CUZ A WHOLE ROW WAS GONE! They actually downgraded our plane and didn't bother to tell anyone. Including the 10 or so other passengers that have their tickets out, scratching their heads, cuz their ROW OF SEATS WERE MISSING!!

There are so many things in life now, that we have NO control over and somehow, we always have our wallets out, paying for the stiff beating we are taking. When did things get so out of hand?

The TSA is a farce. Set up to cause fear in travelers. I mean...how many terrorist have they caught? None!

State Governors seem to be able to pass laws without rules.

And we are held captive over gas price speculators that have NOTHING to do with the gas business and everything to do with gouging the American public.

As one of the "little guys" getting squished in this "land of milk and honey" it's frustrating not to have a cord to pull on a run-away train.

Dreams are often most profound when they seem the most crazy. ~Sigmund Freud

As the date comes closer, my dreams get crazier. The 10th will be the first anniversary of my father's death.

It's an anniversary I hope doesn't stick with me.

I'm still trying to figure out how he is gone. The world didn't stop. It should have. People didn't stop moving around me. They should have, out of respect. The seasons are changing outside my window, right this very minute. Impossible.

How can someone be missing from the earth and the planet doesn't notice? Doesn't the weight shift enough that she seems a bit lopsided in her whirling dance around the sun?

Like when you lose a pound and your pants aren't quite a snug. Or your ring slips off your finger. Or your watch travels around your wrist with no problem at all.

I know when my dad left this earth it changed everything in my life. I could feel his absence every day. Time stopped for me. The silence in my mind filled with questions of "why?".

If I lost a pound, it wouldn't effect the button on my pants, the ring on my finger or the watch on my wrist.

It would be the gaping hole in my heart, that throws off my steps every day. Causes me to stumble with a thought. Makes me grab for a rail that isn't there with a memory. Like an emotional blind man, in a unfamiliar place, screaming for answers.

Even if no one else notices.