Interlude: Travel Time;
In which the joy of exciting new places and meeting new and interesting people is redressed by the pain and suffering of annoying new airports and yelling at unbelievably unintelligent clerks. And Micah makes the blog!
Somehow I made it out of bed on time.
We were not kind to the Sheraton. But I figure that since they didn’t have to clean the room at all while we were there, I don’t feel bad about how terrible we left it.
I even made it downstairs in time to catch the airport shuttle. Look, I know that airport security is not exactly virgin territory for complainy comedy, but was it having passengers remove their belts and shoes that got al-Zarqawi or was it 50-ton bunker busters? Just bear with me because I’m sitting in an airplane seat so uncomfortable I can’t move and if I don’t get this out I might go all Falling Down on the jackass in front of me who keeps sitting up and then shooting his seat back into my lap again. I wish you could see me trying to work my laptop with it resting on my man-boobs, one elbow in the seat next to me and the other periodically clipped by the drink cart. Actually maybe it’s better you can’t.
The shuttle driver can’t drive me all the way into the airport, but I can hop the fence to get to the shuttle bay so I can pay and get my bag? Forget it, Max, you’re still on time. Fortunately, you got an e-ticket because you’re all about using technology to make your life easier. So I swipe the card in the kiosk, get the boarding pass, and as I stand around in a clump of people (not a line, mind you, because that might actually be fair or logical) and wait for the one person who’s in charge of baggage tags for 8 kiosks to call my name and destination, it starts to dawn on me that even two hours before departure might not be enough.
But I quickly dash such thoughts from my mind, for I was raised to believe in the power of positive thinking, and I get my bag checked and wait in line, after line, after line. Now personally, I never thought of Atlanta as a terrorist target, but I was starting to see the beauty in a mass biological attack. It’s not that it’s disorganized so much as there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all. And when you have situations with large crowds and you haven’t figured out the crowd control, you’re going to make people cranky, pushy, and self-serving. It reminded me a lot of driving in L.A.
I’ve only ever missed one plane in my life, and on the few (ok, not so few) occasions when I’ve cut it close, I could always check with an airport employee and they would get me on my plane. So as I’m standing in a giant human hedge maze at 9:07, still not even through the metal detector and my plane leaves at 9:30, I politely ask the green blazer if I’m gonna make it. “Oh yeah, don’t worry, it moves fast.”
I get through security! When is society going to let men wear a purse already? If I could fly in sweats and sandals and keep everything in a little shoulder bag I wouldn’t even mind the pat-down. But between taking out the laptop, taking off the shoes, removing the belt, emptying the pockets, and then still having to explain about the metal in my arm, and before this blog is out, I’ll have done the whole rigmarole maybe 6 times, well, let’s just say it was naptime for cranky people.
At LAX, once you’re through security, you’re never that far from your gate. At Atlanta Bitchfield, you get through the checkpoint and the gates are so far there’s a train to take.
Then three escalators. Then you’re at the terminal, but of course my gate is the one at the other end of the terminal.
Can I take a second to talk about escalators? Now maybe you don’t use that many in your day-to-day but I do, and there’s a simple rule of thumb that would make everybody happy. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of my patented, over-simplified, commie “When are we all going to melt down our cars and build clean efficient mass public transport” pipe dreams. This is a simple thing that you can spread to everybody you know. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s easy to remember, and it even allows for individual choice. Ready?
When on an escalator, WALK LEFT, STAND RIGHT!
It’s just like on the freeway, people. The slower traffic moves right. If you want to stand, you stand, without blocking those who want to walk. If you want to walk, you don’t have to weave and push and squeeze. Oh, how I want to teach the world sing in perfect harmony….
Anyways, I get to the gate at 9:29 and the plane’s gone. “Bu-but…It’s nine-thirty now!” I sob, knowing full well there’s nothing I can do. Every plane I ever get on doesn’t leave the gate for twenty minutes after scheduled departure time, but the one time I get there exactly on time, “We stop boarding ten minutes before departure time, sir.”
Oh, and remember when they would page “Passsenger Latehead, please report to gate yadda yadda”? Not anymore. Some lady was in such a rush she sipped and sued. No worries, they put me on the very next plane to LA, which is boarding now. I should have been suspicious when the Delta employee informed me that my flight was boarding right now at the gate I just came from, but I trust in the inherent ability of every worker to perform his or her chosen occupation. Boy is I dumb.
Anyways, LAX is not any easier on my sanity than Atlanta.
I only missed one flight, but it’s looking more and more like my bag did even worse. That’s all right, I think. I’m sure it took the first flight. Or if not, surely it made it onto the same flight as me. Or if not, surely in the age of bar codes and luggage tags, and integrated synergistic technology, someone will know where it is.
Pause for crazed ironical laughter.
Turns out TSA’s system for tracking bags involves scanning them as they arrive, not as they’re put on the plane. So let’s say, for example, that the crackerjack team of experts at Homeland Security is able to subdue a terrorist with a bomb in his checked baggage before he gets on the plane. They have no way of knowing where the bomb is until the plane reaches its destination. But they had to X-ray my bottle of water. Water’s still transparent, right?
Remember, if I don’t get this bag in the next hour or so, I fly to London without so much as a toothbrush or a change of drawers. And all anyone at baggage service can tell me is to wait for each plane that comes in from Atlanta. If it’s on the plane, you’ll get it. If not, wait for the next one. Grrrrr.
Micah, superhero that he is, comes down to the airport bringing contact solution and moral support. Or so he says. I think he just wanted in the blog. Here you go, Micah…
It was kind of a weird conversation, because I didn’t want to tell him anything about the trip that he would read about in the blog, but the stuff that’s not getting in the blog is the ugly parts. Trust me, taking out the ugly parts is what makes this less a surveillance report and more a rollicking and engaging narrative.
Bag shows up, Micah goes home, Max goes through more security checkpoints. The gnawing anxiety in the pit of my stomach is replaced by a gnawing hunger, which, as Micah would say, is way more treatable. Now by the time I get to my gate for the London flight, I only have an hour or so and I gotta get to blogging! So I decide to skip the more appetizing restaurants in the terminal (Gordon Biersch, Wolfgang Puck), sacrificing flavor and quality for speed and efficiency (Burger King). I won’t bore you any further, but I spent more time trying to get a damned combo meal than I did getting through international airport security. And some of you have felt the wrath of my hunger-anger, so you know what a ticking time bomb I was becoming. I think it took incredible restraint not to leap over the counter and start instituting some serious discipline, Fred Jones-style, on the whole operation.
I’m just saying, I took this as I boarded. Can you read the time?
Big plane, huh? Check out the guy for scale. One day I’ll know what it’s like on the second story of an airplane. But for now, I’ll just have to settle for the personal video screen. Although it does make it hard for me to sleep when I look around and everybody’s watching something else. Moulin Rouge over there, The Simpsons over here, he’s playing Tetris, she’s watching Match Point, that guy’s got on a documentary about the Maori. It’s like a TiVo exploded and formed hundreds of little marching TiVos, à la The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. “Watch me!” “No, me!” “You’ve always wanted to see me!” “To know a country, you must watch its sitcoms!” “Two and a Half Men is a critical and popular success!”
And why are so many people seeing that Failure to Launch?! It’s stalking me. Christine, I hold you personally accountable.
Well, it’s about time for my tri-hourly butt-clenching and unclenching stroll around the cabin. Sorry about this one, way too text-heavy. I’m trying to let the pictures tell the story, but it’s in transit that I have the time.
Looks like we’re about to fly into the sunrise anyways, we’re somewhere between Nova Scotia and Greenland.
Somehow I made it out of bed on time.
We were not kind to the Sheraton. But I figure that since they didn’t have to clean the room at all while we were there, I don’t feel bad about how terrible we left it.
I even made it downstairs in time to catch the airport shuttle. Look, I know that airport security is not exactly virgin territory for complainy comedy, but was it having passengers remove their belts and shoes that got al-Zarqawi or was it 50-ton bunker busters? Just bear with me because I’m sitting in an airplane seat so uncomfortable I can’t move and if I don’t get this out I might go all Falling Down on the jackass in front of me who keeps sitting up and then shooting his seat back into my lap again. I wish you could see me trying to work my laptop with it resting on my man-boobs, one elbow in the seat next to me and the other periodically clipped by the drink cart. Actually maybe it’s better you can’t.
The shuttle driver can’t drive me all the way into the airport, but I can hop the fence to get to the shuttle bay so I can pay and get my bag? Forget it, Max, you’re still on time. Fortunately, you got an e-ticket because you’re all about using technology to make your life easier. So I swipe the card in the kiosk, get the boarding pass, and as I stand around in a clump of people (not a line, mind you, because that might actually be fair or logical) and wait for the one person who’s in charge of baggage tags for 8 kiosks to call my name and destination, it starts to dawn on me that even two hours before departure might not be enough.
But I quickly dash such thoughts from my mind, for I was raised to believe in the power of positive thinking, and I get my bag checked and wait in line, after line, after line. Now personally, I never thought of Atlanta as a terrorist target, but I was starting to see the beauty in a mass biological attack. It’s not that it’s disorganized so much as there’s no rhyme or reason to it at all. And when you have situations with large crowds and you haven’t figured out the crowd control, you’re going to make people cranky, pushy, and self-serving. It reminded me a lot of driving in L.A.
I’ve only ever missed one plane in my life, and on the few (ok, not so few) occasions when I’ve cut it close, I could always check with an airport employee and they would get me on my plane. So as I’m standing in a giant human hedge maze at 9:07, still not even through the metal detector and my plane leaves at 9:30, I politely ask the green blazer if I’m gonna make it. “Oh yeah, don’t worry, it moves fast.”
I get through security! When is society going to let men wear a purse already? If I could fly in sweats and sandals and keep everything in a little shoulder bag I wouldn’t even mind the pat-down. But between taking out the laptop, taking off the shoes, removing the belt, emptying the pockets, and then still having to explain about the metal in my arm, and before this blog is out, I’ll have done the whole rigmarole maybe 6 times, well, let’s just say it was naptime for cranky people.
At LAX, once you’re through security, you’re never that far from your gate. At Atlanta Bitchfield, you get through the checkpoint and the gates are so far there’s a train to take.
Then three escalators. Then you’re at the terminal, but of course my gate is the one at the other end of the terminal.
Can I take a second to talk about escalators? Now maybe you don’t use that many in your day-to-day but I do, and there’s a simple rule of thumb that would make everybody happy. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of my patented, over-simplified, commie “When are we all going to melt down our cars and build clean efficient mass public transport” pipe dreams. This is a simple thing that you can spread to everybody you know. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s easy to remember, and it even allows for individual choice. Ready?
When on an escalator, WALK LEFT, STAND RIGHT!
It’s just like on the freeway, people. The slower traffic moves right. If you want to stand, you stand, without blocking those who want to walk. If you want to walk, you don’t have to weave and push and squeeze. Oh, how I want to teach the world sing in perfect harmony….
Anyways, I get to the gate at 9:29 and the plane’s gone. “Bu-but…It’s nine-thirty now!” I sob, knowing full well there’s nothing I can do. Every plane I ever get on doesn’t leave the gate for twenty minutes after scheduled departure time, but the one time I get there exactly on time, “We stop boarding ten minutes before departure time, sir.”
Oh, and remember when they would page “Passsenger Latehead, please report to gate yadda yadda”? Not anymore. Some lady was in such a rush she sipped and sued. No worries, they put me on the very next plane to LA, which is boarding now. I should have been suspicious when the Delta employee informed me that my flight was boarding right now at the gate I just came from, but I trust in the inherent ability of every worker to perform his or her chosen occupation. Boy is I dumb.
Anyways, LAX is not any easier on my sanity than Atlanta.
I only missed one flight, but it’s looking more and more like my bag did even worse. That’s all right, I think. I’m sure it took the first flight. Or if not, surely it made it onto the same flight as me. Or if not, surely in the age of bar codes and luggage tags, and integrated synergistic technology, someone will know where it is.
Pause for crazed ironical laughter.
Turns out TSA’s system for tracking bags involves scanning them as they arrive, not as they’re put on the plane. So let’s say, for example, that the crackerjack team of experts at Homeland Security is able to subdue a terrorist with a bomb in his checked baggage before he gets on the plane. They have no way of knowing where the bomb is until the plane reaches its destination. But they had to X-ray my bottle of water. Water’s still transparent, right?
Remember, if I don’t get this bag in the next hour or so, I fly to London without so much as a toothbrush or a change of drawers. And all anyone at baggage service can tell me is to wait for each plane that comes in from Atlanta. If it’s on the plane, you’ll get it. If not, wait for the next one. Grrrrr.
Micah, superhero that he is, comes down to the airport bringing contact solution and moral support. Or so he says. I think he just wanted in the blog. Here you go, Micah…
It was kind of a weird conversation, because I didn’t want to tell him anything about the trip that he would read about in the blog, but the stuff that’s not getting in the blog is the ugly parts. Trust me, taking out the ugly parts is what makes this less a surveillance report and more a rollicking and engaging narrative.Bag shows up, Micah goes home, Max goes through more security checkpoints. The gnawing anxiety in the pit of my stomach is replaced by a gnawing hunger, which, as Micah would say, is way more treatable. Now by the time I get to my gate for the London flight, I only have an hour or so and I gotta get to blogging! So I decide to skip the more appetizing restaurants in the terminal (Gordon Biersch, Wolfgang Puck), sacrificing flavor and quality for speed and efficiency (Burger King). I won’t bore you any further, but I spent more time trying to get a damned combo meal than I did getting through international airport security. And some of you have felt the wrath of my hunger-anger, so you know what a ticking time bomb I was becoming. I think it took incredible restraint not to leap over the counter and start instituting some serious discipline, Fred Jones-style, on the whole operation.
I’m just saying, I took this as I boarded. Can you read the time?
Big plane, huh? Check out the guy for scale. One day I’ll know what it’s like on the second story of an airplane. But for now, I’ll just have to settle for the personal video screen. Although it does make it hard for me to sleep when I look around and everybody’s watching something else. Moulin Rouge over there, The Simpsons over here, he’s playing Tetris, she’s watching Match Point, that guy’s got on a documentary about the Maori. It’s like a TiVo exploded and formed hundreds of little marching TiVos, à la The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. “Watch me!” “No, me!” “You’ve always wanted to see me!” “To know a country, you must watch its sitcoms!” “Two and a Half Men is a critical and popular success!”
And why are so many people seeing that Failure to Launch?! It’s stalking me. Christine, I hold you personally accountable.
Well, it’s about time for my tri-hourly butt-clenching and unclenching stroll around the cabin. Sorry about this one, way too text-heavy. I’m trying to let the pictures tell the story, but it’s in transit that I have the time.
Looks like we’re about to fly into the sunrise anyways, we’re somewhere between Nova Scotia and Greenland.
posted by m@x at 12:30 PM
1 Comments:
I am so glad you made it to the UK, Max! You scared me about missing your flight! James and I cut it close as well. Dude, our hotel room looks awesome. You need more photos of me on this thing.
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