Yeah, -What was Once, -Only Naturally and "Of Course!", -a Matter of Complimentary Customer Service!, -Has Turned into a Sale! And as you said, -What Product is it that they're Trying to Sell you?!, -and Hopeing you'd Buy?!

Heck, -Just Up the Ticket Price a Bit, -to Cover this, -and People may Never Notice! Evidently Not Thought of / Turned Down.

I Recall the Time I Flew on Delta in the Mid 90s, I Got a Reasonably Nice, OK, -Chicken Sandwich or Two, Maybe Three. Orange Juice. And maybe Another Little Thing or Two. And a Nice, OK Enuf Packet of Delta Peanuts, -Grown Down in Rome, GA. My Flite though was Atlanta to Orlando and Back, -Not Transcontinental as was your's.

I Flew Continental on another occassion. (North-South Pretty Much the Length of the East Coast). Memory Doesn't Serve me Well Enuf to Really Comment on it's Food. But it's Food Service Wasn't Neccessarily Bad. Or I would have Remembered. It was probably a perfectly Ordinary, OK Experience as well. (By the Way, -I Remember Delta's Food, as an OK to Positive Experience, -Not a Bad One! I Add this in All Correctness and Fairness!)

This (Continental) was also in the Mid to Later 90s, -*Before* Somebody's Brite Idea to Sell their Valued Customers their Service!

It's just Another Variation on our Longstanding National Experience with Scarcity and Tight and Rising Costs! We're Always Creatively Trying to Find a New Way, -to "Get a Little More Blood Out of the Stone!"

We were Once a *Bounty* Based Country, Society, and Economy! Bountiful Abundance! Back in the 1800s, for Example. And even the Earlier Decades of the 1900s! Just Look at the Difference Between Many an Old Building, and Today's Cost Crimping Clapups that we Throw Together! Intrically Carved Wood or Stonework! Oh, We may Still have the Imitation! But Back Then they Had the Real Thing! Our Society and Economy Drew From Far More Bounty back then!, -At Least in Many Quarters. Today, -We Ever Try to Draw and Squeeze from a Tightness and Scarcity! Do we as Individuals and a Society even Realize This?! It's Partly our Fault, and Not All Unfortunate Circumstance's Fault! I'd say that the Former has Led to a Good Bit of the Latter!

Wheras if Now and over the Last Number of Decades, -We'd Have said "Yes!" to Bold Pure Science!, -We Could by Now, or in Times to Come, -Arrive Back at a New, Bountifully Rich Resources Base!

I'm Talking Space Exploration and Development, the Nuclear and Subatomic World, Nuclear Fusion, Desalinization, "Disease Detectives", Materials Science, Supercomputers, Genes and Genetics, -and Other Such Likes!

It's Nice, and also now Important, -to Creatively Squeeze Economic Blood Out of a Stone. But the Economy and Society Should be Following and Operating from Resource Adequacies to Abundance! This is Where the Real Overall Emphasis and Focus Should be On!

As a Society, -We're so Immeadiate and Short Range! That we Don't Seem to Have a Clue! It's as if we Didn't Even Know that We Don't Know!

In a Larger Picture Sense, -I Think This Looking Towards Abundance Shud be Much of our Base and Focus!

It's Lack is a Longstanding Treadmill that I Think our Society and Economy, -Should Want to Get Off Of! Something to Think of a Bit. Let's so Think Longer Term!

When you Can't Even Anymore Get a Decent, Complimentary Meal on a Flight! Let Alone be Expected to Pay for It!,....! This Only Speaks Volumes about this Larger Phenonomon I'm Talking About!

(Woops! As to my Commenting on such Larger Economic Picture, -I was Beginning to Wonder which Forum I was on, -Towards the Tail End. I'm on "Survival"! And so I Acknowledge that that Economic Portion is perhaps More Appropriate Around the Campfire. I'm Aware of / Acknowledge Such / and Duly Apologize. Airline Food is Certainly Closer, to say a Least.) [color:"black"] [/color] [email]rbruce[/email]