First, a message to Seats 18D, E and F:
Hi, I'm That One Guy sitting up here in 16A. Why do you find it necessary to inflict your spawn upon me? Maybe I've just completed a stressful trip full of meetings. Maybe I'm busy running away from my problems for good. Maybe I'm hungover. Hell, maybe I'm drunk. I'll tell you one thing that isn't a maybe: I don't want to hear your baby screaming all the way from wherever I'm coming from to wherever I'm going. If you must travel with your baby, maybe there's a way to do that that doesn't impinge on my life. You could drive. You could plan ahead a little and take enough time off to do that. Or you could wait a couple of years until the screaming is under control. You could have the family come to you. I'm on a red-eye flight so I can try to sleep while I travel, which is hard enough as it is. Now when I and everyone else on this flight show up at work tomorrow morning, we're gonna be exhausted, bloodshot-eyed and irritable. And it's all your fault, selfish inconsiderate Mom and Dad!
And now...
While we're on the topic of flying, let's talk about a little joke, and this time, the joke's on you, air traveler! I'm talking about airport security. Who are they trying to protect? From whom? Or what? They don't do anything now that they didn't do before September 11, with the exception of making you take off your shoes, pull your laptop out of your bag, and spill your toiletries all over the bathroom counter at home while trying to transfer it into smaller containers. Now three people instead of one watch the x-ray and snicker at your skivvies, and they stop the belt constantly to imagine you wearing them. Now it just takes longer, and it's a bigger hassle. But does it keep us any safer? It probably generates revenue for the airport bar. I know after having my socks, toothbrush and polka-dot boxer shorts spread out on a table for thorough examination, I want a couple beers.
Airport security is a dog-and-pony show intended to show the terrorists that Homeland Security has muscle. They show their power by delaying you for the better part of an hour as you enter the airport thus requiring you to show up an hour and a half before a forty-five minute flight, then they take away your shampoo because you didn't have time in your rush to leave the house to get there on time to put it in your contact lens holder, so you just grabbed the bottle.
I have seen some gruesome videos on YouTube of people severely pummeling other people using skateboards as the pummeling device. You can bring a skateboard through security and right onto the plane. Just run it through the x-ray with your coat and your Vans. The last time I took a plane anywhere, my first order of business after leaving the airport with my rental car at my destination was a stop at the local drug store to buy toothpaste. Fortunately, TSA managed to catch it before I had a chance to take the plane down with it. Crisis averted. Whew! Toothpaste in an 8.5-ounce tube is a threat to national security. Even when it's all rolled up in order to extract those last few shots that are really tough to get out of the tube. Guess I won't have to fight with that, since now it's Oakland International Airport's problem. Don't worry about the skateboard, though. The toothpaste, by the way, is far more dangerous if it's in your bag than if it's safely in your pocket. I would have saved myself a buck and a trip to the drug store if I had just thought of that. Even worse, I paid an extra $2.50 on my plane ticket in order to offset the costs incurred by this travesty. Do you think taking everybody's toothpaste away would have prevented the World Trade Center tragedy? Do you think relieving the passengers of their shaving cream would have prevented Pan Am Flight 103 from getting blown out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland?
If you want to actually make things secure in the airspace, the rules are going to have to be a lot stricter, and a lot more pervasive of your flying experience. Maybe even Draconian. First, no carry-on luggage. Bring a book, a magazine, a sandwich and an iPod in a ZipLoc bag. Get naked and wear a TSA-issued paper suit with a hang-tag on your chest to hold your government-issued ID and a few bucks for a drink. Print the boarding pass directly on the left sleeve. If you want to bring anything else on board, I think you can figure out where you'll have to stow it.
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Here are three things I've found help me to keep the stress level down while going through airport security.
- Before you pack your carry-on bag, empty everything out of the bag. Make sure you didn't leave your Swiss Army knife and a bag of weed in there from your last camping trip.
- Go early and go prepared. If you go early, chances are security will be a breeze and you'll have to hang around the airport for a while. Hurry up and wait. If you go late, that's when security lines wrap around the building and out onto the runway, everyone has to scatter when someone yells “plane!” and you miss your flight. Be prepared when you're early. Bring a book. Bring a video game device of some sort. Bring an alarm and take a nap. I like to bring thirty bucks and drink at the airport bar.
- The only things you need on your person when you walk through that metal detector are your boarding pass, your government-issued ID and your toothpaste if you don't want to get it taken away. Put everything that is not those things in your bag, including your cell phone and your wallet. Then after you successfully pass through the security checkpoint, you just have to put on your pants and your belt and your shoes and your bra and grab your bag and head to your gate. You can skip the step of putting things back in your pockets. Do that later when you're sitting in the bar and having a beer.
To avoid babies and get some rest or work done on a flight, get out of cattle class. Upgrade to business class.
To get through security quickly, they now offer a card with a biometric chip that will fast-track you through airport security.
Both solutions cost money, but most businesses will cover the expenses.
The biometric card may require finger printing, retina scans, and blood, urine, hair, saliva, feces, and sperm samples.
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