Steely Dan's "Black Friday" references the small town of Muswellbrook in New South Wales, Australia. Donald Fagen says he chose that lyric because the town looked to be at the exact antipodal point from where they were at the time.
That Black Friday is much on my mind on this Black Friday, as my flight from LaGuardia has been delayed four hours (so far) because there's a light on the plane that won't light on one side. If you've ever spent any time in the filthy Habitrail that is Terminal B, you'd also find yourself wishing you were in the exact opposite place.
It would be easy to get all umbraged and dandered up, but I'm not. This is just the Lore of LaGuardia. The decor is dingy. The departure signs are made up of black tiles that have slid into the same grooves for decades. The runways are 12 feet long, and rain makes them unusable.
It is also a well-known fact that Spirit Airlines named itself for all it has sucked out of us over the years. They're cheap as hell, but they charge you $50 per bag. When we mess with Spirit AND LaGuardia together, we know we're gambling with the Venn Diagram of Doom. We're playing with fire AND downed power lines at the same time, and we love it.
The good news? Spirit just announced we all get a $50 credit on the next flight we take. Because they know that when we're ready for our next Dance with the Devil, our bag might as well fly free.
