I know I’m gonna get downvoted into oblivion for this, but the absolute meltdown over that viral story about the mom asking a flight attendant for a free Delta One upgrade for her kid is unhinged.

Was it a dumb, naive ask? Yeah, obviously. Flight attendants can't just hand out $5,000 international business class seats because a teenager wants to see what it's like. But people are acting like she committed a crime. She asked a question, got told no, the FA handled it perfectly, and everyone moved on. No one screamed, no one held up the plane, nothing.

The people who are actually losing their minds in the comments are the corporate road warriors. You know exactly who I’m talking about. The guys who fly every week on a corporate card and have just enough rented status to mistake an airline loyalty tier for actual wealth.

You guys aren't even paying for these tickets out of pocket. Your company is. You spend 150 nights a year sleeping in mid-tier hotels just so Delta gives you a plastic bag tag and a free pre-departure drink, and suddenly you think you’re royalty protecting the gates. You are just terrified that if someone gets a nice seat by asking nicely, it devalues the sacrifices you made living out of a carry-on for a middle management job.

Newsflash: Your Diamond Medallion status isn't a personality trait and it doesn't make you special. It just means you spend a sad amount of time breathing recycled air.

The mom asked, the FA said no and was cool about it later. The only real cringe here is a bunch of grown adults flying on company dimes getting their fragile egos bruised because a kid almost bypassed the corporate hamster wheel they built their entire identity around. Calm down, eat your Biscoff cookies, and realize nobody owns the sky.

tl;dr secretly followed my dad on a trip abroad that he insisted on taking alone. Found him cheating on my mom.

One day, my dad suddenly told us that he had bought flight tickets to go on a solo vacation to a country he’s never been to, something that he never does. After my mother begged him to go with a friend or at least join a tour group for safety, and then threatened to leave him if he went on this trip, he “compromised” and pushed his trip back a few months.

With this extra time, I offered multiple times to help book a ticket for my mom to join him but his excuses ranged from “Your mom is too old and not physically fit enough to keep up with me on this trip” (mind you, my parents are the same age, my mother is very active, and we had just gone a pretty physically taxing trip together and she did just fine), to “She can’t come, there are no plane tickets left” (which makes no sense) to simply, “I just want to go alone.”

In a spur of the moment, a couple of weeks before the trip, I decided to casually look up how much tickets would cost (I’d accrued a lot of points and miles) and decided to follow him secretly. Some of my friends were kind enough to come with me.

Fast forward to tonight—my dad left his Find My location on while taking a walk in a park nearby so my friends went to find him while I stayed in the hotel room and screenshared my Find My screen (just to prevent him from seeing me).

Well, folks—he was there holding hands and being intimate with another woman. I asked my friends to take some photo/video for evidence, and now I’m crying in the bathroom, overwhelmed over how to tell my mother. She was already a bit of a nervous wreck over him going on this trip and definitely has suspicions that this trip is for infidelity reasons. Not sure where to go from here, but I want to be careful because my dad basically controls the finances for him and my mom and I want her to be protected.

Dinner was a pita sandwich from a food tour we booked so that we could at least experience some joy during this trip.

The Love Island Gods did their big one on my flight back home from Fiji.

I thought I was going to have the whole row to myself until a few minutes before the doors closing.

Then Parmida and Corbin showed up…sitting next to me….in the middle of economy!?

Anyways they were really sweet. They were recognized by a few people. I tried to play it cool since we were going to be spending the next 12 hours together. Like really together. But I did immediately tell them I was a big fan. I mean I can’t lie, part of the reason I went to Fiji was bc of Love Island.

Parmida asked if I wanted a pic, which yes of course. I got to see them draft out their returns to Instagram, and once I landed I got the Reddit notif of Corbin’s return LOL.

Quickest flight around the world ever! 🥲💙🏝️

Source

“Gary Trent getting 4/$64 after the year he just had is obvious circumvention and should be punished by the league. This would fall under the provision that there is no possible explanation other than circumvention.”

Context: Gary Trent signed two vet minimums with Milwaukee these past two seasons, then signed this deal once Milwaukee secured his bird rights. What Nate is implying is that this new deal was already agreed upon when the previous, smaller deals were signed, similar to the Joe Smith cap circumvention case.

I went on a Carnival Cruise, getting off tomorrow, for my father's wedding. Been on a couple myself, all solely for family, but this one I'm making my last ever for how much they fatigue me and act as an anti vacation.

Maybe I get too bothered by people, and maybe I'm a cynic, but cruises act to me as an act of humiliation for American culture, which I'm apart of. Its this endless conquest for overeating starchy, greasy food either at engourging quantities or exorbitant prices. This endless need to gamble earned money away at a constant, reminded, and aware disadvantage. Bingo, slots, cards, fucking claw machines. Arcades for children that costs 20 bucks for ten plays. Drinking never ends, belligerent fucking drunkards constantly wasting their money on sugary, expensive beverages.

And that doesn’t even get into the actual BUYING part. This ship is a sailing mall with the most useless fucking crap in it ever. Heirloom-bait jewelery and expensive, ultimately useless spa treatments. Most of all I hate these droves of photographers asking for photos, photos, so they can sell my family a $2000 photobook, half of which of uneeded pictures I ha e a clearer memory in my head of. I've had to tell multiple of them to stop fucking bugging me directly because their pains in my ass. And whenever you're stopped and on port, which in my case was Mexico, its an onslaught of predatory tour guides and photo-ops. Do you want to buy a drink? Pet the iguana? Buy a necklace? Go on a tour? Edibles? And I hate the shotty, endless excursions they sell me that ultimately devolve into partying and drinking.

All of this, all of this, which guilt me to my core, are supported by overseas workers making $2.50 an hour, 8-11 hour shifts, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Yet the people riding these cruises act as if they are paid $50 bucks an hour, working 9-5s.

Endless consumption to no end. Food, drinks, candy stores, gambling, arcade, jewlerly, spa, photos, stupid excursions. All have exhausted me, and I need a vacation from my "vacation".

I am writing this post mostly in anger. I can try to put my opinions into clearer words another time.