Lufthansa airlines

Ahh, Lufthansa: offering the best in quality, service, and inconvenience.

This story begins on a calm and misty morning in the Eternal City. As the sun breaks over the horizon of this chaotic epicenter of art, culture, and irritability, one would never guess that the highly prized American values of service, pleasantness, and alcoholic consumption would be met in flight while streaming fluidly across the Atlantic.

Why is Lufthansa so surprisingly wonderful? Well, it's not run by Italians, and that's just the beginning of it.

When sitting in seat 40.K, the in-flight entertainment is quite often the horrifying amusement caused by the cantankerous odor drifting sharply from the lavatories. However, when flying with Lufthansa, there is a competing odor to win your olfactory affections: sweet honey rolls served with butter and cheese.

The food is unparalleled by any other airline. As an added bonus, real metal silverware is provided to assist you in consuming the feast with a steady hand (and inciting a compulsion for kleptomaniacs). I had half a mind to take a set back home with me, deterred only by the thought of running through the detectors at security with enough red on my face to match the spaghetti stains on my beard.

And, undoubtedly the best perk, there is the generous offering of free alcohol on every flight (*college freshman awake beneath a showering of beer cans and cock their heads in amazement*). Yes, I said it: free alcohol. Wine, beer ... even Baileys. There is no charge, nor even a look of disapproval from the attendant (just one from my aisle-seat co-passenger after my third glass ... I can hold my liquor, just not my bladder).

However, like all fairytales with those characters who have bitten the apple of bliss and found only half a worm, this story does have squirmy ending. For all of its painstaking attempts to please me beyond all forms of conceivable happiness (and sobriety), Lufthansa decided to delay my luggage until the next flight from Europe came in 4 hours after my arrival.

So, I see how it's gonna be, Lufthansa: get me all boozed up and leave me in a strange place without my clothes and underwear. Wait a minute ... wasn't that my first date with Jonathan ???