The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Airport Navigation
By Greg Evans
I don’t particularly like to fly though I’ve probably flown maybe like 10,000 times, against my will, zero exaggeration, in my colorful life. The concept of flying, as in a seagull gliding over the ocean, soaring through the air, releasing its bowels on the bellies of unsuspecting sunbathers or swooping down to steal a cheese doodle out of the hand of a beachgoer is not what I am referring to when I say that I find flying insufferable. I am referring to flying in tinfoil sardine cans at 500 mph, 35,000 feet above the the ground where God chose to put us, without wings. I recall the time, on a plane, that I came up with three prudent reasons for my rancorous feelings.
The Bag Checking and Carry-on Dilemma
Everybody knows when you get to the airport you have to wait in that ghastly long, unendurable line while the travelers in front of you fumble around with their passports, and identifications, and luggage, all of which should have been ready to go before they stepped foot in the line. But, it is not solely their fault. They reach the ticket people who sneer and tell them that it is now $50 per bag to check onto the plane. But, before the bag can be checked it is scrunched into a metal frame that determines whether or not you have to leave some of your possessions behind. Nearly every bag fails to meet the space requirement. Representatives of Goodwill and the Salvation Army stand by waiting. By the time you reach the Zone Rouge (airport security) you are already on edge. Wild-eyed and sweating is not a good look when you come face to face with the steely-eyed, and underpaid brownshirt better known as the TSO agent, formally the TSA, though the agency made the job title change to help improve morale. They felt the word “Officer” was less imposing than “Agents”. I also think they wear Royal Blue these days, but I was only firing for effect with the snide brownshirt reference.
Crossing Through No-man’s Land - Navigating Airport Security
Once your ID and ticket are scrutinized, you step into what is known as No-man’s Land. I rarely make it through No-Man’s Land without a fresh layer of scarring. I remember an incident when my daughter and I were rushing to get to our plane and for whatever reason, the TSO agent didn’t like the way I looked, stopped us, and dragged me out of line. I was forced to stand on the two yellow feet. He then looked hard at me. He had two wandering eyes, both looking in different directions. And he said, “This is going to be invasive. Would you like a private room?”
“God no. Do it right here,” I said. He grinned. I was then lasciviously fondled and molested. Other travelers looked away, their faces pale with horror. They hurried through as fast as possible before this TSO goon was allowed to survey the herd once again. After being sufficiently violated, they rubbed my palms and fingers with a substance and used a machine to check for gun powder or bomb residue. There was nothing. Obviously. I was nothing more than a lowly journalist and eventually we were allowed to go to the gate. That wasn’t the first time I have been accused of trying to smuggle an invisible bomb or lethal weapon onto an airplane.
When my daughter was even younger, we were traveling through security at an airport, I think in Florida, and one of them snatched one of her toys off the conveyor belt, after it went through the X-ray. It was plastic and didn’t set off any blaring alarms but a TSO lady grabbed it and shrieked, “This could be a bomb!” It startled me. I was standing there watching, totally baffled. You know when you see something and the brain has trouble making sense of it. It was one of those moments. I began to wonder about the requirements for becoming a TSO agent. “So ma’am, can you recite the Alphabet? Well, that is close enough, you are hired!”
My daughter did get her toy back but then the crazy TSO lady grabbed her unopened bag of potato chips and handed it to her male companion, also TSO. He was tall, lanky, with huge bags under his eyes, and he proceeded to feel the bag, crunching up the chips, presumably checking to see if we had smuggled a machete in the bag of chips? I couldn’t help but wonder if he sufficiently washed his hands after the last time he used the restroom. As he destroyed the chips, turning them into potato dust, the crazy TSO lady stared me down. It was odd and more irritating than unnerving. Was it my crazy eyes that freaked them out? Or maybe the half-receding hairline. It had to something? This happened too often for it to just be random. Alright, here comes number 13, let’s really give him something to think about. This is an absolutely true story. It is almost too peculiar to believe. Eventually they gave up harassing us and let us pass.
Another time I was in Gadwick Airport in England. We had flown from Newark to London and then taken a bus to Gadwick to catch a flight to Salzburg, Austria. I got in line with everyone else. While on the British Airlines Flight, at least back then, they offered a free mini bottle of wine. And by mini I mean, a good 12 ounces. Every time they passed by I collected another bottle of wine. I think I maybe drank half of one. By the end of the flight, I had a carry on full of them. Fast forward to the TSO line at Gadwick. I put my bad on the conveyor belt to pass through the X-ray machine. The person observing halts the line and the conveyor belt and wrenches up my bag. It is taken to a table and guarded by two TSO agents. And then they did someone remarkable. They called for back up. I was yanked from the line and made to stand before my carry-on.
“What is the problem?” I asked. A stern lady unzipped my bag and turned it upside down. At least 10 mini bottles of wine came pouring out. “This is illegal to carry onto the plane,” she said. Mind you, I was about to board a British Airline plane, the same company that gave me the wine in the first place.
“I got this wine from your plane that I took to get from the U.S. to here?”
“You can’t bring it on.”
“But they are not opened.”
“Rules are rules. And we have rules for a reason,” she said. “You must throw them out.”
“I will not throw them out,” I said as two more TSO agents arrived. It was now four against one.
“Either drink them here, or throw them out,” she said. I looked at the bottles. That was a lot of wine. I picked one up, opened it and started chugging. For anyone who has ever tried to do it sober, chugging wine is difficult. I could only make it half way through the first bottle before giving up. With a smile, the woman threw all my wine into a trash bin. I was then escorted to a full-body x-ray machine, forced to stand there with my hands over my head (this is before this method became popular for all travelers), and was zapped with a horrific amount of dangerous x-rays. After what seemed like twenty minutes I was allowed to put my numbed arms down and proceed to the metal detector. My luggage was once again put through the conveyor belt x-ray machine. Luckily, I didn’t set off the metal detector and made it to the plane before it took off. It was quite an ordeal and I was very much on the edge of my nerves.
The Croop Coughers
Me getting stuck next to, or in front of a heavy cougher, on an airplane, has become somewhat of a running joke in our family. When I am booking flights, always a tedious endeavor, I always get seats with us seated next to each other. I won’t fly otherwise. I prefer flights with just two seats to that row separated by the aisle. But in some cases, the only option is three seats. So, I put my daughter on the aisle, I sit in the middle, and there is a stranger beside me. I don’t like strangers. I’m sure most of them are nice, generally speaking, but I find it difficult to get comfortable without being heavily medicated. For whatever reason, and maybe at some point I made the universe mad, I regularly get someone with either a savage cold, or a contagious flu. One memorable flight I sat beside a sick lady who coughed and sneezed into her window without covering her mouth. Spittle ricocheted off the window and struck me like rain driplets blown in sideways by the rain while huddling under an awning. For over two hours I gripped the handles of the seat and leaned away from her. My daughter chuckled the entire time. Another time I was sitting in front of a lady with a spastic cough so aggressive that I felt it striking the top of my head in regular phlegmmy gusts of hot, wet, diseased wind. That took a while for me to get over.
Endless Problems
There are endless problems when flying, especially nowadays. One time in Asheville, NC, we had to be towed off the runway as our plane spewed jet fuel loke a broken fire hydrant. I was sure a fire was going to ignite and then the plane was going to explode. Hour to multiple hour delays happen so often they have become routine. The suitcase is too full. No six packs allowed in the carryon. Every time it is something.
The moral to my story, there’s no way out. You can only drive so many places. My family tells me to suck it up, it’s the same for everybody. And so it is.