random thoughts in Cincinnati

There are no direct Pittsburgh-Chattanooga flights (not surprising). The cheapest ticket was on Delta, whose hub is Cincinnati.

Delta doesn't do Chattanooga directly; they have a partner (or perhaps an assimilated smaller airline?) called Comair that flies there. Comair apparently also does Pittsburgh occasionally, as my final leg back to Pittsburgh was Comair rather than Delta.

All three Comair flights that I took were on the same type of plane, a little 50-seater that doesn't interface with the "just walk onto the plane" style of gates. So for three of the four flights, I walked onto the tarmac and then walked up a set of steps onto the plane.

In Cincinnati, it appears that all Comair flights use this interface, though not necessarily the exact same plane type. You walk onto the tarmac and then walk up onto your plane.

While I was sitting at the Comair gates on Sunday, I noticed many people in wheelchairs waiting to board. I heard one person tell an attendant "it's ok; I can climb the steps if there are rails", this was definitely not going to be the case for some of the people I saw. I wonder how the heck they were going to get those people onto the planes, but there really wasn't an appropriate time to ask someone. Do they have some sort of lift that they can hook up to replace the steps?

Another observation: these steps are very narrow, and have railings on both sides. I definitely know people who are too large to fit. That has got to be really embarrassing.

Either Comair was having a spate of bad luck, or their ticketing practices are worse than the norm. I heard announcements -- all in about a 25-minute span -- of four flights that were oversold. They were looking for volunteers to take a different flight "for compensation". They didn't broadcast what the compensation is, though, so I don't know how expensive this overbooking is for them.

My flight (on a 50-seat plane) had, I think, 6 empty seats.

ack!

Last week I was in Giant Eagle and picked up some peeps (mmm, peeps), because I'm a small-scale addict (not Laura-class). I remembered a claim on the peeps web site that they are kosher, so I looked for the hechsher (certification mark) on the package and didn't find it. I wrote to them suggesting that they add it.

Let me digress for a moment. We are talking about the peeps web site -- the marshmallow candy, and a site published by the manufacturer. This is not their general web site; this is about peeps and peeps only.

This is the reply I got back:

Dear Ms. Cellio,

Thank you for your recent e-mail. We hope you enjoyed visiting www.marshmallowpeeps.com.

All of Just Born's jelly candies (Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, Zours, Teenee Beanee Gourmet Jelly Beans, Peeps Jelly Beans, and Just Born Jelly Beans) are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union. The gelatin used in our marshmallow candy is derived from pork products.

Again, thank you for your taking the time to contact us; we hope this information is helpful.

When I first read this today, I assumed a typo -- that they meant to write "...is NOT derived from pork...". After all, their site said peeps were kosher.

Then I took a closer look. Note the list of candies above. Note that peeps are not on this list (but peeps jelly beans -- which I have never heard of -- are).

So I went back to the web site. The last entry in the FAQ at http://www.marshmallowpeeps.com/fun.html says: "All of Just Born's jelly candies (Mike and Ike, Hot Tamales, Zours, Teenee Beanee Gourmet Jelly Beans, Peeps Jelly Beans, and Just Born Jelly Beans) are certified kosher by the Orthodox Union." This is the same text as above, except that it fails to provide the warning about marshmallow peeps, the specific candy this web site is about!

So peeps are not kosher, I accidentally ate pork last week, and I did that as a result of reading a true-but-misleading statement on their web site.

Lovely.