I'm pretty sure you do, every day. Even if you don't have a food allergy, you are trusting that the minimum-wage workers who prepared your food didn't make a mistake that contaminated your meal or otherwise made it unsafe. If you want to talk about a severely underpaid class of workers, low level hospital and clinic staff don't make much, particularly for the hours/duties, and they're very connected to your health. Ever gotten your car serviced at Wal-Mart? Or bought wiring on the recommendation of a Home Depot clerk?

Or is one so elevated above humanity that one need never allow minimum-wage workers to sully one's existence, or in fact rely upon any other human beings at all?

It's a tragic mistake. I can see that even if the guy did know he was allergic, he might not have told the server about a shellfish allergy when he was ordering a chicken meal. It's also possible that the guy did not know about his allergy or that the allergy had become much more severe recently. (I have heard that some people will go through periods of having only mild reactions to shellfish and then, suddenly, WHAM.) And if it's an evening meal, the lights are low, everyone is sort of distracted, etc., I can see not noticing the crabmeat until a moment too late.

It's just tragic, basically.

I don't blame a flight crew for not riding with a group they found legitimately dangerous, but I am somewhat skeptical as to how dangerous the passengers really were at that point. I was on a flight once that turned hostile -- the flight crew, for some reason probably linked to a previous flight, was pissy and difficult from the get-go and, when we ran into delays for takeoff, kept trying to blame the passengers (claiming that people were walking around and costing us the take-off window when absolutely NO ONE was on their feet, and we'd all been dying for a chance to move and maybe visit the bathroom for more than an hour at that point). People booed. The mood was ugly. But the flight crew was in absolutely zero danger, and that was obvious. If it was a similar situation here, then the cancellation of the flight sounds more like pique than a legitimate safety issue.

I may write Congress, but ask them to improve Amtrak funding/track priority.

Today I got an iPod dock that came in a box literally twice as large as it needed to be. I thought I understood when I saw all the no-break padding piled atop the dock, but that understanding was ripped away when I saw that there was absolutely no padding beneath it. Luckily the dock is in good shape.

God, I'd kill for a crawfish poboy right now.

And if they did call my bluff, I think I could deal with that; the new iPhone is rather tempting.

My fire was ten years ago, and I STILL have moments of paranoia about whether or not my apartment is going to be there when I return. These people are going to have to deal with similar trauma for a while.

You also have Venetian blinds, but let's all agree they are not pertinent here.

Seriously, that's a pretty lousy logo -- not very attention-grabbing on its own, and completely devoid of connection to the old, iconic image. I can't imagine that this is going to last long.

These days, I mostly use Expedia and Travelocity to look up low fares. I then call the travel agents to book those fares. I would use Expedia and Travelocity more if they didn't suck like this; as it is, thanks for providing me with a free service so I can spend my cash elsewhere, bozos.

Which is true. And I'm really glad I ran into him instead of some of you pricks.

(I managed to hold myself together for a quick cab ride home, then spent the next two days not feeling so good. Beware the fish.)

ITA that the person most out of line is the manager. If she's as bitchy as that, probably the employees were too terrified of her to bend the rules for the sake of human decency.

Also, I haven't checked a suitcase in at least five years, possibly longer. I am taking my first two-week vacation later this year and wondering if I can manage in carryons only again. I'm hoping so. Taking the lost/misrouted baggage element out of it helps cut down on hassle, and if you do wind up delayed/canceled/bumped to another airline, it's so much better to have your stuff with you.

I don't care if something like dry cereal is a couple weeks past its date, but meat, milk, etc. -- I'm taking no chances.

I've personally never run out of gasoline, but I can pretty well guarantee you that every person on this board who is snarking at her for having done so has done something equally stupid, or more so. (To judge by the intelligence level of the posts, they do so frequently.) We all make mistakes sometimes; people buy stuff like roadside assistance to cushion those inevitable mistakes. When roadside assistance doesn't deliver, it's a ripoff.

At least they let the guy out of the contract.

Of course, I usually stay at hotels too cheap for minibars.

On a personal level, I'd like to express my sympathy; I lost all my possessions in a fire once, and few things are as overwhelmingly stressful and disconcerting. And you guys had this on top of the drain of moving. Good luck to you all.

As there are somehow, despite all human understanding, some blame-the-victim posts in here:

1) Accepting payment for a used car in money orders beats a rubber check any day. Wal-Mart money orders are apparently entirely valid, despite the fact that one Wal-Mart doesn't know it, so why should she not have done this?

2) Many Wal-Marts have banks, so it's not an odd place to cash a money order of any sort -- and you'd think it would be a great place to cash Wal-Mart's own money orders. Guess not.

More than six hours, the plane actually does save time, and the costs don't tend to be much different, so I usually suck up the inconvenience and go. But I'd rather take a train trip than a plane trip any day.

My only gripe is that about one out of every five Amtrak cars is air conditioned to the point of insanity -- like, it must be about 60 degrees in there. But I've learned to carry a blanket.

And as for the "X dollars in this store" -- maybe it's a bad attitude, but OTOH, the regular customers are maybe the ones you wouldn't want to alienate.

Overall I think B nailed it with the first comment. The rest of us are merely fapping.