Galley Gossip: The top five Skymall gifts for the frequent flier

by Heather Poole on

Wearing your stealth secret sound amplifier, you board the flight (finally!), stow the bag in the overhead bin directly above your seat (YES!), stash the reading material and the bottle of water in the seat-back pocket in front of you (you did remember the bottle of water, didn’t you?) and breathe a sigh of relief because miracle upon miracles, there is no one seated in the seat beside you. Smiling, you think to yourself that this flight might not be so bad afterall. But then, you begin to feel anxious, as a long line of passengers slowly begin filing past your seat. While you hold your breath, chanting to yourself, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me, you are unable to concentrate on the bug vacuum pictured in the Skymall magazine that your fingers are now flipping through, as you continue chanting, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me, please don’t sit by me.

Ross Wolinsky wrote on Cracked.com about the 5 most ridiculous things to buy in the Skymall catalog (and Jamie later wrote about here on Gadling), which forced me to ask the question: are the items offered for sale inside the catalog really all that ridiculous…or are they just plain genius? One of the “ridiculous” things Wolinsky wrote about didn’t seem all that ridiculous to me. I mean what’s so ridiculous about the stealth secret sound amplifier? Personally, I find it to be intriguing. And I wonder, does it really work? Because if it does, I wouldn’t mind owning one. And if you owned one, too, you could sit in your uncomfortable seat in coach and focus on all the racy things being said behind the closed curtain in the back galley, instead of on the seatmate who, right before the aircraft door was shut, plopped down in the seat beside you. Thirsty? You can ask me for a Coke without ever having to ring your call light, or leave your seat, and I’d be able to ask you if you’d like ice with that Coke, and we’d all be happy. Like the good ole days.

When I told The Husband I had planned on writing something about Skymall, he laughed, shook his head, and said, “That catalog is ridiculous.”

What The Husband doesn’t know is that his red Jumpin Jammerz, a pair of giant footy pajamas, came from the Skymall catalog. So when I think of the word ridiculous, it’s not Skymall that I think of, it’s the sight of The Husband on Christmas morning running around the house chasing after a two-year old who just so happened to be wearing the exact same thing. Ridiculous…or adorable? You decide.

Personally, I have found a lot of great things in the Skymall catalog. Take for instance the bark free dog barking control machine. Man, I’d like one of those when the neighbor goes out of town and leaves the howling Beagle behind. (How much was that thing again?) Or how about the upside down tomato garden? When you live in LA (or NY) and you don’t have a whole lot of grass in the backyard, because you don’t even have a backyard, this is the item for you. Or was it me? And did you happen to see the litter robot, which keeps the kitty litter clean while you’re out of town? Let me tell you, my cat Gatsby would absolutely love that! And the kid, he’s got his eye on the fold out basketball game. That picture actually kept the two year old aspiring hoop star quiet in his seat on a flight from Los Angeles to New York for a good twenty minutes, as he pointed and smiled and said “Basketball,” over and over and over, allowing me to close my eyes, lean my head back against the seat for a stress free twenty minutes. I mean if the catalog can keep The Kid quiet for any length of time, Skymall, in my book, rates genius, not ridiculous.

Looking to buy a gift for that frequent flier in your life? Here are my top five Skymall gifts for the frequent flier:

1. LED lighted reading glasses: Why? Because you’re on a red eye flight sitting in a middle seat in coach and GREAT, JUST GREAT! The flight is full and the reading light above your seat doesn’t work. FIGURES! You’ve got twenty pages left to go in a really great book and you’re dying to find out what happens at the end. Man oh man, you are never going to fly this airline again. Now don’t you wish you had those LED lighted reading glasses?

2. Gripmaster – Because you’re still in that middle seat, and the flight attendant wasn’t able to fix the dang light, and now the two idiots on either side of you are hogging the armrests. Not to mention you’ve already seen the in-flight movie and the flight attendant, the one who didn’t have a spare light bulb in her apron pocket, ran out of food AND Club soda before she even reached your row. Not only are you never going to fly this airline again, you’re going to write a letter! Well never fear, the gripmaster is here! So now you can stop grinding your teeth and transfer all that anger away from the paper, the one the flight attendant didn’t have to give you!

3. Stress relief wrist band – Nothing has changed, in fact, the flight has just gotten worse, because now the two idiot seatmates hogging the armrests are snoring, and one of them is actually resting his big ole head on your shoulder. You ring the call light – again – and summon the flight attendant – again – who, after dealing with you several times already, is now wearing some sort of strange device on her wrist. Be nice and she may just let you borrow her stress relief wrist band.

4. Skyrest travel pillow – That’s it! Now the kid in front of you won’t stop crying! And you need to get some sleep because tomorrow you have a big presentation. You rip the stress relief band off your wrist, chuck it over the seat in front of you, climb over your snoring seatmate, knocking his elbow off the armrest, and stomp back to the galley where the flight attendants are hiding behind a closed curtain. Snapping back the curtain, you glare at the flight attendants, who don’t even see you glaring because…what the! They’re fast asleep on the jumpseat! With a skymall magazine in one hand, gripmaster in the other open hand, LED eyeglasses resting on the bridge of their nose, stress relief wristbands wrapped around both wrists AND ankles, snoring away like your two seatmates with their heads resting oh so gently on a cushy Skyrest Travel pillow. What kind of freakin airline is this! You rip the dang pillow away from one of the lazy flight attendants and stomp back to your awful seat.

5. Travel toothbrush sanitizer – You awake from a horrid dream about a miserable flight and stumble into the bathroom. After you splash cold water on your face, you reach for your toothbrush that has just been sanitized by your travel toothbrush sanitizer. Because there should be at least one sanitary thing in your disgusting hotel room. I mean your entire trip doesn’t have to be a bust, does it?

Ridiculous…you tell me.

Enjoy drinks on a flight? It’s going to cost you

by Jamie Rhein on

While you’re saving for your day of air travel, keep a few dollars tucked into your wallet. You’ll need them if you don’t want to be sucking like a guppy out of a fish bowl when you get to your destination.

The latest trend in the pay-as-you-go flight experience is to charge for drinks. So far, credit cards won’t cut it. It’s cash only.

On August 1, U.S. Airways will start charging $2 for soda, water, tea, juice and coffee and up the cost for alcoholic beverages from $5 to $7 to passengers flying economy class.

Oh, woe is me. There goes my “Could I have an orange juice, club soda AND coffee?” routine. As trends go, considering carriers have jumped on the charge for all checked bags scenario, I expect the drink charges will also follow suit.

Just great. I’ve been on this kind of flight before. It was called SkyBus, and we know how that airline turned out. We flew to Seattle from Columbus. Since our flights cost $330 a piece already, we didn’t spring for the drinks until the flight back. Then it was one tea and an orange juice. A few months later, on a Delta flight to California, I thought how hospitable it felt to be given something to drink. I even sprang for the wine.

It may not seem like a big deal to have to pay for drinks on a flight, but personally, with airlines acting like they are relatives to a discount grocery store, the kind that just opens cardboard boxes up to save on shelving costs, whatever excitement there was taking a flight is now gone. People shop at grocery stores where food is artfully displayed, partly for the experience.

Where drinks are concerned, particularly since you can’t take liquids through TSA and airport prices are expensive, I’d rather have $5 tacked to the price of a ticket and let me think I’m being treated like a welcome guest. Would you let guests come to your house and not even offer them water, particularly on a day when it’s 90 degrees outside?

I wonder if this coffee pictured here on my last flight from San Diego to Columbus was my last free drink? If I had known, I would have savored it more. As the trends are going, I’d rather take Greyhound for anything that will take me just a day to get there. [Read Washington Post article]

GALLEY GOSSIP: Oh stewardess!

by Heather Poole on

“Excuse me, stewardess – I mean flight attendant!” is something I actually still hear from time to time on the airplane, and that mistake is usually followed by a blush or a giggle, and if the person is elderly, an explanation as to why he or she had just called me stewardess, which usually begins with, “Back in my day…”

Well back in my day we actually served warm rolls in coach along with three entree choices. And we handed out a diverse selection of magazines before the flight even took off. And we could actually enjoy the layovers by eating, showering AND sleeping. We even had pillows and blankets for everyone! Though don’t forget, ticket prices were expensive. But that meant flights were empty, so there were window and aisle seats galore, resulting in smiling happy passengers! That was just thirteen years ago. Perhaps back in your day things were even more different, and by different you know I mean better, a whole heck of a lot better. My how things have changed. I’m not just talking about your flying experience, I’m talking about the stewardess and passenger alike, because the stewardess isn’t the only one that’s gotten a little older and crankier over the years.

When I think of a stewardess, I think of the glamour of days gone by, which are days I never got to see, the days of luxury travel, white gloves, pill box hats, and piano bars on a 747. So when someone calls me a stewardess, I am not offended. Not. At. All. In fact, just the opposite happens. I’m flattered! I mean who doesn’t want to be a stewardess? Trust me when I tell you that we – me, her, maybe even him, and perhaps you! – have dreamed about living the life of a stewardess. Minus the age, weight, and marriage restrictions of course! Yeah, I know, that life is long gone.

But a flight attendant can still dream, can’t she? If that doesn’t work, she can always go to a Broadway show, because on Broadway, this summer, that beautiful, yet unattainable dream still lives, regardless of high fuel prices.

Boeing Boeing is a play about an American living in Paris who is juggling three women, all of whom are his fiancée. How can one man juggle three women, you ask? Easy. You make sure each woman is a stewardess from a different airline. Then you consult a timetable as if it were a bible, marking each woman’s scheduled layover. But as most of you already know, schedules can change and flights get delayed, resulting in turbulent chaos.

I hear the play is hysterical. I’m dying to see it. Maybe you should too. So next time you find yourself fighting for the armrest, cramped in a middle seat, sitting in the last row of coach, as the cranky, sleep deprived, and hungry, flight attendant stops the beverage cart at your row, waves a napkin and barks, “Drink!” Do yourself a favor and go see this play. For me. And you, too, can relive the good ole stewardess days. I know I’d like to.

Virgin Atlantic’s “big” announcement

by Jeremy Kressmann on

As Grant mentioned last week, Virgin Atlantic has been up to something. When they started sending all kinds of cryptic emails to their frequent fliers last week, our minds started to run wild. What could it be? In flight jacuzzis for upper class fliers?! New solid gold airplanes?! Personal in-seat LASERS?!

Last night, Gadling headed over to the Frank Gehry-designed IAC Building in Manhattan to find out. After all the suspense, it turns it was for the launch of a new Virgin credit card. Meh. If you’re looking to throw down enough money to wrack up one million miles you can redeem them for a trip on Virgin’s new space flights, Virgin Galactic. Think you can spend enough? Yeah, me neither.

While the announcement wasn’t as momentous as we had hoped, Virgin did manage to throw down a pretty swanky launch party, complete with free massages courtesy of Virgin’s spa partner Cowshed. You wouldn’t have to twist my arm to fly Virgin, the service is awesome. But only if somebody else was paying for my ticket – they are downright expensive. Hey Virgin, how about a ticket giveaway so we can let Gadling readers try for themselves?

SkyMall: shopping for about anything is a fingertip away

by Jamie Rhein on

I admit, I took the SkyMall catalog with me when I left the Southwest Airlines plane after my last flight. I had grand plans to find something useful or something unusual to write about by pouring through its pages. I got busy.

Then, today, Grant tossed out this link to “The 5 Most Ridiculous SkyMall Products Money Can Buy” at Cracked.com, and after I finished laughing, I unpacked the catalog from my daypack. I looked through it before, but I became curious once again. Cracked.com found some winners. I could use the Hula Chair myself–maybe.

What has caught my attention with this page turning session is the Motion Sickness Relief Wrist Band found in the left-hand column on page 41. On Tuesday I went to Kings Island with my daughter, eight of her friends, my husband, son and another family. I took one too many roller coaster rides and felt woozy all day yesterday. Could this wrist band have helped?

There is a dizzying array of organizers and storage options as well. From the Closet Organizer Trouser Rack on page 45 to the Wicker and Wood Rack on page 55, I’m not sure what my family’s excuse would be for having a house where objects are out of place. The thing about the Sky Mall catalog is that almost any item can sound like a must have.

Here’s one that TSA might add to their gadget repertoire that already includes the body scan device. The Orbitor Electronic Listening Device on page 67 is “powerful enough to capture distant sounds from 300 feet away.” As the rest of the description states, “This secret surveillance device is perfect for when you really need to know what’s going on.” Of course, parents of teenagers might also find the device handy. It only costs $59.95.