TO THE AIRPORT:

• Taxis making up excuses that their machines mysteriously stopped working, requiring you to pay cash.
• Paying for the cab driver to wait curbside at a nearby ATM for you to get the cash to pay them (due to their non-working credit card machines).
• Driving yourself to the airport to learn the central parking area is full and have to spend a half hour parking your car and taking a slow bus through all terminals until they get to yours.
• $25/day parking space at the airport.

 AT THE AIRPORT TO CATCH THE PLANE:

• Cab drivers that made deals with the sleazy paid-by-cash-tip curbside bag check agents.  They let your bags get taken before your right leg hits the pavement.
• Smart people that can’t read a sign that clearly reads “Follow this arrow to the [insert airline here] ticket counter”.  To further draw attention to their confusion, they come to a complete halt right in front of you with no care or attention paid to your stumbling over their bags and being forced to cut across the hall and drop-kick a small child.
• TSA agents with nails longer than your ticket.
• No Starbucks.
• Calling the airline at the airport for a flight change with a voice recognition system that takes direction from Wolf Blitser on CNN instead of you trying to speak with an agent.

AT THE STATION TRYING TO CATCH THE TRAIN:

• Urine smell. 
• Dunkin’ Donuts and no Starbucks.  Sorry Dunkin', but you need to buy quality tea like you do coffee and offer honey just as you do sugar.  Do this, and I promise you will no longer have two space on my Pet Peeve list.
• Smoking allowed outside at the train tracks. 
• Ticket counter clerks with broken speakers and microphones trying to speak with you through an 8” thick plane of bullet proof plexiglass.
• Urine smell.

ON THE PLANE:

• Middle seats.
• Window seats.
• Sitting in the middle seat with people on both sides deciding you do not deserve use of the arm rest.
• Sitting at the window and needing to use the bathroom more than once.
• Fat sales guys who feel they are so important it is okay to shout vulgar epithets in front of woman and children when the flight is delayed.
• Using the bathroom, soaping up your hands and finding the airline forgot to fill up with water.
• Flying cross-continent next to a woman that loves her hair so much it must be flipped every minute or two in such a way stray follicles find their way directly into your mouth, eyes or neck.
• Feeling said stray hair on your neck and not being able to find it.
• Flying first class and dealing with the cattle in the ‘standard cabin’ coming down and using your bathroom.
• Getting an accusatory glance from the same person that ‘dealt it’ next to you and feeling like you must state it was the person that ‘smelled it’ who did the deed.

ON THE TRAIN:

• Fat sales guys that find it critical to speak extremely loud about their very important lives on the cell phone for all to hear.
• Trying to pretend the couple who are just cuddling are really just cuddling without taking pictures or making a special request.
• Doughy pretzels offered as a lunch item in the dining car.
• The scenic sunrise views along the way.  Sunset.  Sunrise. Architectural wonders.  Drying underpants behind the brick building where children play stick ball.

LANDING:

• The attendant telling you it is okay to use your cell phone and then going on for 15 minutes about everything else you cannot do.
• Long jetways and slow-moving walkers on the jetway that stand right in the middle to be sure you cannot pass them.
• Wearing light clothes from your point of origin just for it to be negative 12 at your destination.
• Same as above, but vice-versa.
• Waiting at the baggage claim for ½ hour just to find out the claim was moved with no notice.

LEAVING THE TRAIN:

• Smog and gas smells when getting off the train.
• Getting off at the wrong stop because they are named the same.  Did you know the same trains will stop at Penn Station in New Jersey and Penn Station in New York without making a specific city announcement?
• Urine smells in the station.

AUTOMOBILES:

• Getting to the car rental area just as your – and only you – rental shuttle leaves with no notice of your flailing arms and tired legs.
• Having preferred status at the car rental facility and they forgot to list you.
• Rental cars with unique scents.
• Getting in your car and realizing the cost for your few days of parking cost you a few nights of nice nights on the town.
• Losing your car ticket for the parking garage and paying full price for more days than you parked.
• Parking your car for a long period of time just to find some hipster wrote “clean me” on the rear window of your car.  How cool is he?  I just feel like such a square for not thinking up such a laughable form of vandalism.  “Clean Me”?  That is soooo funny.  I mean no one EVER thought of that before.

HOTELS:

• Big, expensive properties with more restaurants you can imagine but their hours are “Open to Five Minutes Before You Arrived”.
• Getting your room changed from a suite to a crappy single-bed situation.
• European hotels.  I need not say more.
• Lousy airport hotels where the only view is a parking lot with a strange guy who does not blink sitting in a truck looking directly into your window.
• No mini bar.
• Waiting for a wakeup call that never happens.
• Going to your favorite hotel where you are well known as a VIP just to have your colleague who just started traveling get a better room than you.
• Getting out of the shower, pulling out a towel, rinsing your face to open your eyes and realizing the towel had encountered things that even you, with your sick, twisted mind, could imagine.
• Big, thick curtains that won’t let a lick of light in, but never close together enough to prevent a concentrated stream of sunlight into the room that targets your face and burns spots into your retina for the remainder of the day.
• Ironing your clothes naked in the hallway -- because the only available power socket is hidden in the closet – just to have the maid knock once, open the door without a wait and act surprised to see what they hoped for to begin with.
• Seeing said maid when you are fully clothed and wanting to explain you have a spare tire now, but are planning heavy gym time to get back in shape.
• Being happy with yourself to check in at the hotel before a favorite show is on television just to learn the only channel not working is the one with your favorite show.
• Having no metrics whatsoever on what to leave for a tip at various classes of hotels.
• Getting up on time and being fully prepared to face the world.  Only one last thing remains to feel clean and ready to face the world.
• Forgetting your toothbrush.
• Getting a hotel toothbrush that for some reason has the same number of bristles but was designed for long-nosed alligators rather than human beings.
• Cutting yourself with a hotel toothbrush.