As [redacted] as apple pie

I know it sounds impossible, Your Honor, but I swear it’s the truth

My lawyer is also a dear friend, so when he gives me advice, I trust he’s truly trying to keep me out of jail. He and I like to meet at either his house or mine, and meeting in prison would be far less convenient.

He has advised me that defamation is a crime, so I should not defame anyone. No false malicious statements. I’m limited to true malicious statements. Which severely cramps my style.

Unfortunately, as my lawyer-friend has also pointed out, even if I make a true malicious statement about a multi-billion-dollar corporation, they have lots more money available for suing me than I have available for defending myself.

(You can see my lawyer is a real friend, because he might have gotten rich by saying “Sure, go ahead, badmouth American Airlines all you want,” and spending the next several years in court with me.)

So of course, even after what I went through, I’m absolutely not going to badmouth American Airlines.

On the other hand, I would like to describe a few strictly hypothetical scenarios, and pose a few strictly hypothetical questions, which may or may not reflect on any particular airline. Speculate all you want, I’m not naming names, don’t ask me.

Hypothetically speaking, let’s say you live in Ipswich, Massachusetts, and you want to visit your ailing mother in Chattanooga.

You can’t go nonstop from Boston Logan to Chat, so let’s say you book a Charlotte connection.

Let’s say just before you leave home, the airline app buzzes your phone and notifies you that your departing flight will be delayed by more than an hour, because there’s trouble with the airplane, and you sure want them to fix it before taking off, don’t you!

But now you’re going to miss your connection in Charlotte, so let’s say by the time you get to the airport, the airline app has automatically rerouted you. Impressive technology? I’ll say!

So you’re not going to be in Chattanooga by 5 p.m. anymore; now it will be around 10 p.m. But that’s not bad, for a missed connection!

However, this means you’ll be making two stops, not one — flying west to Buffalo, changing planes, then flying back east to D.C., changing planes again, and then finally south into Chattanooga.

Surely the bag you checked will make all these zigzags with you, won’t it?

Let’s say you get to Chattanooga weary but satisfied — soon you’ll be with your ailing mother — and then you watch all your fellow travelers take their luggage from the carousel and go merrily on their way, and the Chattanooga airport grows very, very quiet.

Let’s say the airline’s one and only baggage handler emerges, ready to clock out at the end of his workday, and he sees you standing there all alone, and he says, “Sorry, that’s all I got.”

Let’s say the airline baggage service office is closed, because by now it’s 11 p.m., and nothing is open at 11 p.m. in Chattanooga.

Imagine the friendly airline baggage handler takes pity on you and helps you file a lost-luggage claim on the airline app on your phone. Oh, joy!

The app lets you choose to be notified when your bag arrives so you can pick it up yourself — or you can choose to have it delivered to wherever you’re staying.

Since your ailing mother’s house is pretty far away — a full hour round-trip — you choose to have your bag delivered. How handy!

So the next morning, the airline website says the package is “out for delivery” but doesn’t say when it will arrive, and it doesn’t arrive.

And they don’t answer the phone when you call, and you keep trying to call repeatedly, and when you finally get an answer, the woman says yes, your bag is “out for delivery” but sorry, she has no way to contact the driver. Can’t call, can’t text, in fact she has no idea who the driver might be.

“But since your luggage wasn’t delivered,” she says, “you go buy whatever you need, honey, and you can file for reimbursement anytime in the next 30 days, just keep your receipts.”

So you go to Wal-Mart for a fresh shirt and some toiletries and other basics and you find a Staples for a phone charger cable and you return to your ailing mother.

And that afternoon the bag still doesn’t arrive, and that evening the bag still doesn’t arrive, and you keep trying to call the airline, until finally you reach a different woman, and she says your bag made a wrong turn somewhere, sorry, but it actually did get to the Chattanooga airport — a few minutes after you drove away last night....

And oh my, she doesn’t know why on earth the website said it was out for delivery when actually nobody picked it up for delivery, and she doesn’t know why on earth nobody took it out for delivery after it was clearly orderedto be delivered.

So now, late at night, you drive all the way back to the airport and find your bag sitting right where it’s been sitting for the past 24 hours.

And let’s say you eventually kiss your ailing mother goodbye and make your way home to Ipswich. Now all that’s left is to go to the airline’s website and file for reimbursement for the stuff you had to buy while you waited for your bag.

Simple, huh?

To fill out the user-friendly online form, here’s all you’ll need to do:

1. Choose your preferred salutation: Mr. Mrs. Ms. Dr. Mx.

2. Type your first name.

3. Type your last name.

4. Type the email address that you typed into the app when you filed your lost-luggage claim.

5. Type that email address again.

6. Type your phone number.

7. Type your airline loyalty program membership number.

8. Type your full permanent address.

9. Did you include your country? Type that too.

10. Was the delivery address the same as your permanent address?

11. Type the date you traveled.

12. Have you received your baggage yet?: No Yes

13. If yes, type the date you received your baggage.

14. Type the “incident report number” that the app assigned you that late night long ago when you were standing exhausted in the Chattanooga airport and filed your lost-bag claim on your phone. It’s five capital letters followed by eight numerals.

15. Type the total dollar amount you’re claiming for reimbursement.

16. Choose a category for each item you bought.

17. Type the dollar amount each item cost.

18. Describe each item in your own words.

19. What brand name is that?

20. What store was it purchased from?

21. Type the date it was purchased.

22. Type the name of the person who purchased it unless that was you, in which case you can skip this box.

23. How many of this item were purchased?

24. Have you, or any member of your household, had a previous baggage claim with any airline in the last five years?

25. Type your flight number.

26. Type the date of your flight.

27. Type your bag tag number(s).

28. Shoot and upload a photo of your bag tag(s).

29. Shoot and upload photo of your driver’s license or passport.

30. Shoot and/or upload the receipt the airline sent you when you bought your ticket.

31. Shoot and upload a photo of the receipt(s) for the item(s) you bought.

Aw, don’t still have your bag tag for a quick selfie?

Sorry, without every detail of the form completed, you can’t even click “Submit.” No reimbursement for you!

So here’s my question — strictly hypothetically: Would you ever, ever, ever fly that airline again?

Asking for a friend.