Some thoughts on holiday traveling around X-mas:
I love it when your identification and boarding pass gets checked multiple times. For instance at Terminal 3 in LAX, there's an ID check at the bottom of the escalator, one at the top of the escalator and another once you go through the metal detector. For those who wonder why there's two checks (there's really no explanation for having 3), this happens in airports where the first identification checker can't send people with SSSS's on their tickets to a dedicated lane. So when people go through the metal detectors, the screeners behind the metal detector have to check if you've been singled out for extra screening.
Joking with screeners -- like telling the second person who checks your ID that you don't trust the first person who checked your ID either -- always ends the same way. They play along by offering to call the police or check your body cavities with their blue-gloved hands. They think this is funny. It sort-of is, but really it isn't -- at least not for the first few seconds.
I still love that screeners will search carry-ons for liquids -- which "could be" a bomb -- remove them from the bag and then throw them into a plastic trash bag a few feet away. Do they get hazard pay for this? And how do they dispose of the suspected bombs later? Do the janitors get hazard pay?
The announcements over the P.A. systems at airports and outside about "The Department of Homeland Security has decided" are feeling more and more like a farce. Also I love the reminders to be on the lookout for suspicious people and passengers who I should report to the authorities. Airports are full of suspicious and strange people and I have to keep myself from picking up a courtesy phone to rat out white guys with mullets wearing Tupac Lives t-shirts.
Lines were, for the most part, surprisingly short. Non-existent in Oakland. Long but constantly moving in Salt Lake City. Fairly short in Los Angeles. As for Hartsfield-Atlanta, I can only say thank goodness for the T-gates.
Booking a flight that jumps from one airline to another is a bad idea. Not only will your bags likely get lost, but the second airline will think you are on a one-way flight, which is a one-way ticket to getting SSSS on your boarding pass. I wouldn't mind the resultant feel-you up search -- and might even invest in a heavy belt buckle -- if you got to choose which TSA hottie did the search.
People who sneak lighters past security are heroes in airport smoking lounges.
In Los Angeles, Rolodex advertises in the bottom of the grey bins you put all your stuff in before shoving in into the x-ray machine. Meanwhile, the powerful plastic bag industry is capitalizing on the liquid ban and advertising on travel sites. I hope whichever advertising and marketing gurus came up with these ideas get an extra bag of high-grade coke for their X-mas bonuses.
If screeners want to swab your bags for explosives, tell them to change their gloves. If not, the test is contaminated and they won't know it. Next thing you know if the swab tests positive, they'll be throwing your laptop into the trash can with all the liquids. The dangerous liquids.
Photo: Lady, That's My Skull
