We know why you suck

OK, I'm back. Great vacation. Thanks for asking. One of the highlights was canoeing on the crystal-clear waters of Vermont's Echo Lake. Want more? Click here.

As for a lowlight: Try getting to the airport 50 minutes before your flight -- and, yes, we would've been there about 90 minutes early if not for the suck-ass traffic getting to JFK. Sorry, but traffic around NYC is definitely worse than in L.A. -- going to self check-in and learning from a touchscreen computer that you're too late to check in.

Now, I know it's not the good old days, when I could get to the airport nine minutes before a flight, smoke a Lucky and still have time to jog to the gate with time to spare before they closed the jetway.

(No, I never smoked Luckys. Not at the airport, anyway. But I just read an article about James Frey and felt inspired to add a little more color to that sentence.)

But 50 minutes should really do the trick. Of course, it probably doesn't do the trick anymore because Asshat Airlines -- I mean American -- needs more time to run your credit card for every piece of luggage you're taking with you. And this probably takes extra long because of the geniuses they have working the self-check-in-baggage-fee-collection posts at JFK.

I was annoyed, but still figured we'd be able to get on our flight until we approached a surly American Airlines employee, who I wrongly assumed was there to help American Airlines passengers. I soon realized she was only there to mock American Airlines passengers.

"We were here 50 minutes before the flight," we told her. "But the computer said we're too late to check in."

Before pivoting 90 degrees to berate another customer, she glared at us and spit out two words: "You are."

I'm beginning to wonder if American is sort of kidding when they say "we know why you fly." Unless they mistakenly think that I fly because I enjoy getting verbally bitch-slapped by evil employees, spending $3 for a bag of chips on a six-hour flight and having the option of watching "Penelope" -- possibly the second-worst movie ever -- as in-flight entertainment.

Oh, and by the way: We weren't too late for our plane. Although the system forced us to book ourselves standby on a later flight (which is the flight our luggage took), we sprinted to the gate for our original flight and got on it anyway. Oh, and of course, once we got there and took our seats, we got to wait on the runway for 30 minutes because of "some electrical situation" in the control tower.

Flying is fun.