Is It Cheaper To Fly Or Drive?

It was always strange to watch Dennis Axford and Alex Lyder have a conversation at number seven station. Alex was always right and Dennis was continuously wrong. Even if you were in the front of the fire hall you could always hear Alex’s booming voice as he finished the conversation by loudly yelling in his baritone voice, “You’re wrong!!!” Most of the time this was delivered to Dennis who would become very defensive but had a hard time matching a certain degree of loudness with Alex. Needless to say, Alex won most of the arguments “back in the day”.

One particular incident comes to mind one Sunday morning as Alex was reading the Detroit Free Press newspaper. To put this all into the proper context we will have to go “back” somewhat to see what had occurred before this “famous” meeting of the “minds”.

Dennis had decided to take his family to Florida but couldn’t decide whether to take a plane down to Florida or drive the distance to the deep south. Alex was trying to advise Dennis that taking a plane was far cheaper than driving as you had to book motels, food, etc during your travel down I75. He had also forcibly pointed out that there was also the “wear and tear” on the car that had to be factored into the trip. Dennis totally disagreed and maintained that it was by far much cheaper to drive than to spend all that money on air fare.

Dennis had calculated that if should cost the average family of four approximately $320.00 to drive south while the cheapest flight that he could find came to a grand total of $375.00

Now that we all have the facts we can continue the story of the famous coup by Alex on Dennis.

While Dennis was in the washroom combing his hair (as was his normal behavior upon arrival in the morning) Alex had found an ad in the travel section for an airline flight for four to Orlando Florida for $300.00! Now, if you ever worked with Alex you would know that he loved this kind of inside information which he used to bait his prey : )

Alex smiled at everyone around the table and said, “Ok, watch this”. He then placed the page with the ad in front of the chair which Dennis would soon be sitting in. He knew that Dennis would not focus on the newspaper right away. We all chuckled as we knew what was about to occur.

Dennis entered the room and sat at the table. He looked rather dapper with his freshly combed hair, I must say. It was then that Alex started his routine. Looking at Dennis squarely he stated, “I bet you can still travel to Florida cheaper by air than by car!”. Dennis, in his wisdom, knew that he now had Alex exactly where he wanted him this time. He could smell the victory firmly within his grasp. Dennis was not famous for parting with his hard earned cash but this looked like fools play to him. We could all imagine what was going on in his mind at that moment which was, “How much cash can I take off this guy?” Dennis smiled slyly and said, “You’re on… let’s make it $5.00 shall we?” Alex quickly agreed to the bet. Alex deftly asked Dennis how much it would be to travel by car to which Dennis replied, “$320.00 and that’s a steal! The lowest price I could find by air was $375.00. Aha… pay up, You Loser…hahaha…” he laughed. At last, for what surely seemed a sure thing for Dennis, was to be short-lived. I believe he was even about to do a "victory dance" at Alex's expense. He was ecstatic for approximately 10 seconds while Alex patiently waited. Old Alex resembled a fox that was surveying his next meal.

All at once, pointing to the air line ad that Dennis had not noticed, the booming voice of Alex Lyder raised at least 10 decibels as he stood and leaned over and yelled, “YOU'RE WRONG!!!. You can fly for a measly $300.00. Take a look at the ad har har har!!!”, he laughed. It was priceless to see the look on Dennis’ face go from victory to defeat in 4 seconds.

When Dennis went to extract $5.00 from his wallet I could swear that I saw moths fly out of it.