Every time I fly commercial my experiences are often similar. It goes something like this:
1: Only economical ticket departs way too early in the morning.
2: Wake up at 0-dark-30 and seven hours before my flight departs. Shake the wife awake.
3: Load all of our crap into the car, drive an hour to drop the dog off at the kennel.
4: Arrive at the airport and fight to find a parking space that costs an arm and a leg to park in.
5: Stand in line at the ticket counter for an hour with an overly obese man screaming into a cell phone on my left and a baby screaming into my ear on the right.
6: Stand in line to prove I am not a terrorist.
7: Stand in line again to prove my carry-on is not a terrorist.
8: Strip my shoes, belt, hat, keys, wallet, pull up my pant legs and remove my jacket to again prove I am not a terrorist.
9: Change gaits three times and spend another hour waiting for my delayed flight.
10: Finally get seated to find out I am not actually sitting next to my wife, but the overly obese man from the ticketing counter is sitting directly next to me and has a breathing problem. His fat spills into my seat and I can not recline due to a broken recliner button.
11: Arrive at destination a mere two hours later.
12: Wait an hour for our bags, which are always the very last ones to come off the conveyor.
13: Find that either A: My bag is somehow broken, mutilated or destroyed. B: My bag has once again been "randomly selected" for a check, all of our personals have been rifled through and my wife is screaming in my ear about how mortified she is that some stranger just saw the "Lacy Surprise" she had brought for the trip.
14: It is now 17 hours later and my Mother-in-Law is complaining about how awful her day has been the entire hour+ trip back to the in-laws house.
And the entire time all I can think of is, If I would have flown my own plane I would have:
1: Woken when I felt like it.
2: Drove across town to a small airport and simply thrown my bags in the baggage compartment.
3: Hoisted the dog in the back seat and helped the Mrs. in the front.
4: Enjoyed an adventurous flight across our beautiful country with my wife sitting next to me.
5: Cut the hour+ trip with the mother-in-law down to roughly 20 minutes.
If this doesn't convince you to spend a bit extra money to fly yourself, read "Right of Passage" by Rinker Buck. I wan't to fly across our country every time I read this book.
My thoughts on the subject.
That's true folks.. I got a little carried away. RDUStinson would make a gracious host even if you needed a little re-education regarding North Carolina rivalries. When I first got here I was told that I had to "choose my blue" (University of NC or Duke) only to go out to the airport and find out that there are some NC State fans around who prefer red.
I have a red plane but i'm from the west coast so I'll just play stupid if anyone has a problem....wait I actually dont know what your talking about already 
!
Either way I have JC to look forward to! 
