The accidental teaist

Travel days, brought to you by crappy tea.

I know, I should bring my own bags and just ask for the not-hot water. I have, however, neither the foresight nor the chutzpah to do either. So I slump in my seat with the tray table down and ask the alternatingly cheery/brutish flight attendant for a cup of hot tea. No cream , no sugar, thank you.

On Southwest, there is no uniform tea policy. Sometimes you get a cup with a bag already brewing; other times, you get an elaborate delivery of artifacts — paper cup of hot water, tea bag, empty plastic cup (for the tea bag once spent, and it also can double as a heat-saving lid), small red plastic stirring stick. The tea, however, is always the same: a dusty little bag of Mother Parkers, a "beverage services" brand hailing from that renowned tea country, Canada.

Sigh.
It gets me by
while I fly.
Then the hotel room coffee machine,
tasting of latrine,
makes me wonder
why I wander.