American Airlines is the only penitentiary I know that doesn’t just sit there stolidly on the ground. No. It has to fly around and inflict itself on the innocent everywhere. It’s every bit as dismal as Sing Sing, though, combining the elegance of a wrestler’s armpit with the curiosity of having the thieves on the outside, at corporate, and the prison matrons on the inside. I’d rather fly in a Dempster Dumpster piloted by a drunk, since dumpsters usually leave on time and are not owned by pickpockets.
So I told my travel agent, get me anything but this aerial disaster. Get me Air Equatorial Guinea. Get me Fat Robert’s Catapult Service. I’ll dangle under a goddam box kite. But not, not ever, American Airlines. I’d rather have smallpox. I’d rather have largepox, or anthrax. Anthrax is unpleasant, but at least you leave on time.