Travel Jagoffs

May 18 2012

Doubletree Internet And Other Things We Don’t Need

This is our last gripe session about our trip to Charlotte this past week.  But, this one REALLY gets us.

Let’s do the old MasterCard commercial:

Cost of staying in the Charlotte Doubletree: $143/night

Cost of dinner at the Charlotte Doubletree:  $10/hamburger

Cost of parking at the Charlotte Doubletree:  Kind of forget but, around $10/day

Cost of me, sitting in the parking lot of a cheaper hotel, eating my Doubletree chocolate-chip cookie, sipping on my free Doubletree coffee and STEALING the cheaper hotel’s FREE internet:  PRICELESS!!!

I enjoyed my stay, and I SHOULD have for those kind of prices.  But the fact that, you give me extra warm chocolate-chip cookies upon check-in, a free razor if I forgot one, free toothbase if I forget some, a free comb if I needed one (I don’t), a free USA Today – which nobody ever reads, free soap, shampoo and hair conditioner, free electricity, free water – despite the fact that I run the HOT WATER for 45-minutes to “shower iron” my clothes after traveling coupled with the fact that your  wireless internet access is simply floating in the air and not a soul has to do ANYTHING to provide me access to it, do you REALLY have to charge $9.95 to use the internet, Ya Jagoffs??????

 

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By Jagoff Catcher • Travel Jagoffs • 4 • Tags: , , ,

Apr 13 2012

Airport Baggage Claim Jagoffs

At the airport baggage claim, why do people have to stand right at the edge of the conveyor belt in the way of EVERYONE ELSE who is tryin’ to pick up their bags? Can’t these people see their homemade curly-glittery-red-ribbon handle markers from 3 feet back and simply step in when it comes around? Its not like ya paid for a front row seat!!!

STEP AWAY FROM THE BAGGAGE CLAIM BELT SO THAT I CAN SEE MY BAGS, YA JAGOFF!!!

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By Jagoff Catcher • Travel Jagoffs • 1 • Tags: , ,

Feb 10 2012

“Just Sit Down Until The Door Opens!”

We all know, at this point, that traveling by airplane is no longer that fun, exciting way to travel any more.  As a matter of fact, it’s about as torturous as wearing a Pirates team jersey to a Braves game, in Atlanta, and cat-calling the Atlanta players then realizing you are seated in the Braves “Team Family Members” section and then having to ask the Braves Fan sitting next to you if they could spot you $10 for another beer!  Our worse, it could like flying in a USAirways plane.. oh wait.. um… nevermind.

But some things that make traveling by airplane  miserable, have been happening for a loooooooooooooooooong time.  This one is our favorite.

Just as soon as the pilot turns off the “Seatbelt” sign, you have those passengers that squeeze out of their window seat, grab their stuff out of the overhead compartment and then SIT or STAND right in the aisle while they wait for the airpline door to open.

Our point: Yes, the seatbelt sign IS indeed turned off.  But the airplane door to the outside is still closed, there’s no where for you to go!

Hey Mr. I-Have-to-be-The-first-person-off-Because-my-meeting-is-more-important-than-yours, yes, you may have to urinate.  Yes, you may have been sitting next to someone who hogged your armrest or who snored like a Midas Muffler commercial or who’s love-handles were touching your bare arm and yes, we ALL want to be the first one at the baggage claim (where we stand around forever anyway).

At Catholic Church Bingos, there is an unwritten bingo protocol essentially stipulating that, if you are new to playing bingo at the church, you risk your life by yelling “bingo” if you have it and yell it before you’re fully vested as a 5-year dobber-winning veteran.  And the 26-card playing gang members are not nice people to mess with.

Just like the Bingo Protocol,  There’s an unwwritten protocol for exiting a plane… HINT:  it’s like teaching your daughter how to wipe, FRONT TO BACK!!

Stay in your seats and out of the aisle and take your turn.  And while your waiting, DON’T pull out your cell phone and OVERMODULATE forcing us ALL to hear that you’re “in town” Ya Jagoffs!

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By Jagoff Catcher • Travel Jagoffs • 1

Dec 30 2011

The SQUAWK Of The Snowbirds!!! Go SOUTH not-so-young Man!

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Well here it is, our very last post of our very first year of blogging! January 1, 2011 was our first post – topic: The Winter Classic in Pittsburgh. We hope you will stick around the next year as we grow this thing.

The picture above does NOT do this posting justice. Basically, it represents a microcosm of any Interstate heading South out of Pittsburgh yesterday. What you see are trucks, more trucks, a huge RV from Quebec with a car-in-tow, ANOTHER RV and, that’s only the start of it. We’re pretty sure that there is Subaru in front of that mess with a “50-year member” West Penn AAA sticker on it’s bumper and a 2005 Toyota Camry with a window sticker that says, “I brake for bingos.”  The one guy we COULDN’T get a pic of looked to have rigor mortis setting in and his RV had a car in tow, to bicycles strapped to the back, one of those power chair brackets on the back of the car in tow and…….. two canoes strapped to the roof of the pick up truck that was towing the RV!  (There’s a kitchen sink joke in here but we’re not doing that!)

Don’t know who unleashed them all this week but, there were soooooo many senior RV drivers headed south that you would have thought that Betty White had invited them to be in the next Cucoon movie shoot OR someone yelled, “free bingo and all the free sugar, salt and pepper packets you can stuff in your purse in Florida, this week only!”

Look, we know to respect our elders and we will chase anyone down that doesn’t and check them into a wall with the force of James Harrison and the skill of Brooks Orpik. BUT…….(as Mike Lange might say) “Get outta the FAST LANE, GRANDPAP!”

What in the world tells a senior citizen man, who has difficulty maneuvering his Aries K car in the church parking lot, that he SHOULD be driving a vehicle the size of an aircraft carrier down a highway with full intentions that he should have a BIGGER one NEXT year, Ya Jagoffs??

 

Don’t forget to check out our store!!!!  You can get t-shirts just like THIS one!  Click on the shirt to get to the store!

 

One programming note… a quick recap tomorow WITH a “Quotes On The Bus” Quote. 

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By Jagoff Catcher • Driving Jagoffs, Travel Jagoffs • 0

Nov 9 2011

Outta Hand Airline Baggage Charges?

OK, so most of you know that on the Facebook page, we have made a transition from a Personal Page to a Fan Page.  We’re struggling with it a bit.  Including the fact that we lost the name of the person that had messaged us this story.  But we’re gonna tell it anyway and hope that she, who submitted it, will take full credit for it in the comment section.

In Catholic School algebra, we always had to solve for the letter n.  So n is now = to the person that sent us this story and x = the unnamed Pittsburgher military dude that this happened to.  The known variable in this problem = United Airlines. Soooooo……

If a plane leaves Chicago at 10pm at night and has a full load of passengers, each with at least 50 pounds of luggage and each of them ate, AT LEAST, 2 CinnaBon rolls, a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, waffle fries and a bottle of water, and only 50% of the passengers actually went to the bathroom prior to boarding therefore leaving the remaining 50% of the passengers with that extra water weight and 12 of the passengers purchased either a hefty romance novel or a Wall Street Journal at the airport store, how much should the United Airlines counter staff charge a military person, returning home from duty, for his military equipment bags that are slightly over the acceptable baggage weight limit?

(Imagine the Jeopardy Doooooo-dooooo-do-dooo-do stuff right here.)

Hmmmm… this answer should be relatively easy if you provide common sense theory. How about ZERO and couple that with a little, “Thank you for your service, welcome home!”

Sure, rules are rules when someone’s trying to bring home 6 dozen pineapples packed in their luggage next to 10 days worth of sweaty underwear.  And you can make the argument that, “if every person brought on just 2 pounds of extra luggage, then we would be WELL OVER our safety weight.”  But here’s our arugment back… those people that have to tear through their dirty laundry and remove things at the ticket counter just to meet the official bag safety weight DON’T REALLY WEIGH LESS ON THE PLANE!!!  They stuff one shoe into their purse, another one into their back pocket and stuff their beach towel into the laptop bag.

All we can say is, if we saw that guy, x, at the airport, trying to get home with his military equipment, and his stuff didn’t make weight, we would

1)  throw our stuff out so that we could carry some of his

2)  throw some of the person NEXT TO US stuff out so that THEY could carry some of his

3) and if we saw the counter staff making him pay for the extra pounds, we would walk up and pay the bill with our last bit of coins that we planned on using at CinnaBon

So, United Airlines, we think you owe x his money back.  Even more, you owe him an apology AND a ”thank you!”  In the meantime, how about sending him some free tickets to that he can fly somwhere and relax with his family in a place where he can actually ENJOY the sand that he’s in.  And while you’re in the sending mode, how about sending your counter staff to “common sense school” Ya Jagoffs!!!!

Thanks to Facebook followers Douglas L. Graham, John Rogers, Jim W, Jr and Gary H for being Honoary Jagoff Catchers for the post that ALMOST appeared here… you guys STILL deserve credit for contributing!

And a special thanks to long-time Facebook Followers, Arnold Slick and David Anthony Daittillio Delduca for being ESPECIALLY COOLeven though we’ve never even met them in person!!!

Don’t forget about Wednesday Trivia Night at 1 For the Road Tap Room – Walk in and say, “Hey Mike, Gimme a beer, Ya Jagoff!”

If you’re new here, be sure to click on the categories to the left, like TRAVEL JAGOFFS to see  other stories like this!

 

 

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By Jagoff Catcher • Travel Jagoffs • 1 • Tags: , , ,

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