Fly American from Niagara Falls to Houston

Ah, what pleasure it is to fly the friendly skies, being still crammed into a cabin like sardines with your legroom eaten up by someone else’s reclined seat! With valiant grandeur, you find yourself surfing through the vast ocean that is the internet, seeking the magical realm of affordable airfare. Bursting with anticipation, you can't help but wonder: will you find that mystical creature known as ‘cheap flights’ from Niagara Falls to Houston? Will the fruits of your taxing labor be rewarded? Only time will tell!

Thinking about your ordeal, we're always told that there are bountiful options out there: one-way magic carpets of metal or round-trip airplane odysseys. But we gloss over the fact that all too often, our direct flights - those that we see as unicorns of the aviation world - become mystical creatures with 'layover' or ‘connecting flights’ etched on their foreheads. Ah, the irony of our existence, we pay more to stop more!

We've all heard those airline jargon thrown around so freely like confetti. ‘Red-eye flights’, ‘last-minute flights’, ‘flight deals’, ‘international flights’, ‘flight duration’. We try to nod sagely, even as our minds are boggled by words that sound like a foreign spell from the realms of Harry Potter. Relax, we say to ourselves, we're not conducting rocket science here.

And then there's the classist division in the airplane. The first-class cabins pitted against the economy class. The privilege of premium economy class passengers to receive an extra peanut over their 'lower' counterparts. And let us not forget the one with the ‘business class’ ticket, that blessed soul who receives an extra inch of legroom or two. Alas, the airlines often forget that we’re not a species of flamingos or contortionists. We can't curl our knees to our chests and play human pretzels just for a discounted ticket!

Oh, and you may think that ‘flight cancellation policy’ would always act as your fail-safe. But more often than not, it seems to reside in the realm of quantum physics theory; not all that easy to comprehend nor accessible enough to implement. It appears that the ‘flight schedule’ is a more elusive creature than the Sasquatch itself, who dares us to catch it, if we can!

Also, the incantations that are chanted at the airports - ‘Baggage allowance’, ‘frequent flyer’, ‘mileage program’ - such potent charms that even Dumbledore wouldn't dare to use without careful preparation! Believe me when I tell you, they're not as fairy-tale-like as they sound. They have been known to turn many unsuspecting travelers into half-crazed sorcerers scraping a few bucks here and there. I mean, who wouldn’t like to summon extra luggage or fly for free with the mere swish-and-flick of a ‘mileage card’ wand?

Your quest for the ‘best time to book’ is akin to finding the Holy Grail while being asked not to giggle at Monty Python sketches. The predictions in finding that magical moment when the ‘airfare’ drops lower than a snake's belly seem as if Nostradamus himself has written them!

The greatest adventure or should I say misadventure, my friends, is that we keep flying in spite of the comic tragedy that airlines put us through. We keep signing up for more because, at the end of the day, the ‘in-flight services’ – the pretzels and minuscule sodas – somehow make it all worth it. Or at least give us a valid excuse to grumble all the way to the land of our dreams. Happy flying, brave souls!