This weekend, I am flying to South Dakota to see the famous Mitchell Corn Palace. I have mixed feelings about this trip, because, although seeing the Corn Palace has been a lifelong dream of mine, I have never flown on an airplane before and I am nervous about what to expect. Do you have any tips for me?
Sincerely,
Doug
Brockton, MA
Dear Doug,
Doug, first and foremost, I hope you have a really nice time at the Corn Palace. I hope you are blessed with many happy memories of…of whatever it is that you do at the Corn Palace.
Now, onto the topic at hand. You’ve come to the right place, Doug. Your Aunt Slugger has a great deal of air travel experience – so much air travel experience, in fact, that even the strongest drugs cannot suppress the memories. I’ve tried; nothing has worked.
As your Aunt Slugger sees it, there are a number of problems with air travel, which I will list here:
1.) The airlines. These assholes will rob you blind at every opportunity, and there is not one single thing you can do about it. We had the opportunity to stop them, we did. Back when they started charging baggage fees, we should have made a statement by filling our suitcases with rotting catfish and sweaty compression shorts. But we didn’t. I wanted to, but the rest of you apathetic dicks didn't back me up.
2.) Security. I know that some of you are going to defend airport security as being critical to the safety of airplane passengers. I get what you’re saying, I really do. You’re clinging to this dream of an airport security utopia wherein suspected terrorists are caught, honest people are treated with dignity, and deer eat right out of your hand while you go through the metal detector. But you need to face reality here: Our airports would be just as safe--possibly safer--if we put a common dairy cow at the entrance to each terminal.
For those of you who are busy drafting e-mails to me in which you ardently defend airport security, stop now. Stop it. Put down the pen. You are only deluding yourself. Airport security, as it is currently conceived, is - how do I say this diplomatically? - a circus.
First, there is the random screening process. Now, my grievance with the random screening process is not the randomness. Your average complaint out the TSA screening process always involves someone's 90-year-old grandma getting frisked and run through the x-ray machine. I am automatically voiding these complaints. Which is it? Do you want to risk that your grandma gets randomly selected to be screened, or do you want to engage in racial profiling and thereby end up somewhere between Adolf Hitler and dog shit on the moral decency spectrum? That's what I thought.
No, my grievance with the screening process is the screening process. It's stupid. And pointless. I was once randomly selected to be screened at Midway airport in Chicago. Your Aunt Slugger is not proud to admit this, but at the time, I was an accountant. Please don't judge me; I was young and I was desperate. Anyway, I was traveling for work, and I had in my possession both a staple remover and a pair of scissors. When I was selected to be screened, my bag went through the x-ray machine again, and HOLY FUCKING GOD THERE'S SOMETHING IN THIS BAG! THERE'S SOMETHING IN THIS BAG! It turns out that my staple remover was creating a national emergency. They went through every square inch of my bag. They removed the staple remover and inspected it carefully. After no less than five minutes of thorough investigation (during which time I was patted down), they returned the staple remover to its rightful place and I was able to board the plane.
The scissors - THE SCISSORS - were left in place.
And now, I would like for you to envision a world in which a staple remover is deadlier than a pair of scissors. You can't, can you? Right. The modern human brain is not capable of that kind of absurdity, which is hard to believe when you consider that we spend 80-85% of our days pondering the goings-on of Kate Gosselin and Donald Trump.
To preserve your mental hygiene, I will NOT share with you the details of the time I had a pastry shaped like Oscar the Grouch (fuck you for judging me - you know you would've bought it too) and I put it through the x-ray machine in its own plastic container and the security personnel--there were three of them--kept running it through the machine, backing it up, and running it through again to figure out what it was, rather than just, for example, looking at it with their own eyes. No, I will not share that story with you, because it's so fucking stupid that it will make you suicidal if you think about it for too long.
3.) Other Passengers. This is where the bulk of your trouble is going to occur during the average flight. You can mentally accept the fact that the airlines suck, and you can justify the inanity of airport security as being just another of humanity's great fuck-ups (with germ warfare and skinny jeans being among some of the other greats). But the other passengers...well, if the Oscar the Grouch pastry story didn't make you want to kill yourself, your fellow air travel passengers will. Either way, I am expecting about a 90% mortality rate from reading this column.
You will begin seeing problems at check-in (there's always some asshole who cuts you in line or tries to put a child in his or her checked baggage--which is less of a problem these days because the airlines will let that one go with a higher luggage fee), but your real problems will begin at security (of course). Some of the common offenders include
- People who don't have their shit ready to go through the x-ray machine
- People who refuse to take off their shoes
- People who are afraid of that air puffer machine that checks for weapons (GET YOUR ASS IN THE MACHINE OR SO HELP ME GOD I WILL BEAT YOU TO WITHIN AN INCH OF YOUR LIFE WITH MY STAPLE REMOVER)
- People who become upset when security confiscates a full tube of toothpaste (we won't touch on the liquid restrictions - or else I won't be able to finish this column without setting fire to my eyes)
- Women in impractical high-heeled shoes (for no specific reason other than they really bother me. Who wears impractical footwear while traveling? Only an idiot.)
Once you finally take off (if you make it off the tarmac...good luck), and after you've dealt with the guy who is sitting in your aisle seat and says, "Oh, it's OK, I don't mind the aisle" and pretends as though his middle seat is more attractive and then sighs audibly when you insist on occupying the aisle seat for which you paid an unreasonable fee, you will also encounter
- People who scream every time there is mild turbulence
- People who invade your personal space
- People who make cellular phone calls despite clear rules prohibiting it
- People who recline their seat backs onto your lap during the ascent and descent
- People who hit the flight attendant call button instead of the reading light button and don't realize it and then become confused when a flight attendant shows up
- People who try to talk to you when you're sleeping
- People who try to talk to you when you're reading
- People who tell you that they are in the frozen ravioli sales business (really; I wish I were making this up) and then ask what you do and then lecture you on your specific line of work as though they, being in the frozen ravioli business, know more about your line of work (which is not the frozen ravioli business) than you do.
In conclusion, Doug, Google Maps tells me that it's a quick and painless 27-hour drive to the Mitchell Corn Palace. Have fun.
Sincerely,
Aunt Slugger
