December 22, 2001

• Some Things To Consider When Travelling By Air, At Christmas, During Threat Of Terrorism
  
  1) Carry No Luggage. Luggage is your enemy. Luggage is death. Luggage make you miss flights. Carry-on only. Buy clothes at a thrift store at your destination.
  
  2) Hell Is Other People. People get cranky, people get irrational. People will lead you to do something patently unwise, simply because they are frustrated. Further, you will do the unwise thing because you are frustrated.
  
  3) Waiting Is An Art Form. Some people wait poorly; they pace, they are frustrated, they do unwise things. They yell and scream at people who are doing their best in a horrible situation. Some people wait adequately, eager to be led around and reassured. Some people, however, have elevated waiting to a unique expression of their personal identity and its relation to society, to the world. One such man was in front of me in line earlier; he remained himself.
  
  4) Do Not Bump Into An Armed Guard. In the US, there are men in airports, wearing camoflage, carrying loaded M-16s, with their fingers on the triggers. Do not cause them any inconvence.
  
  5) People Will Deny Reality. Waiting in line on the sidewalk, I saw at least a dozen people drive up to drop someone off. The traveller would assume that the line didn’t apply to them, simply because they had imagined that they would just show up and waltz to the plane. There was always a period of about a minute and a half, where they would stand still, their mouth forming silent words, their face registering confusion, the wheels turning in their minds, trying to understand the challenge ahead of them. At one point in this line, there was a gap where it went across a driveway that needed to be kept clear. People would go to this gap and assume it was the end of the line, even though it was blatantly obvious that another two hour’s worth of line existed in plain sight on the other side of the driveway. It would take three or four repetitions by complainers to get people to allow themselves to come to this realization.
  
  6) “May I have your attention. Please do not leave luggage unattended. All checked and carry-on items are subject to search. Please report any request to carry articles for others or any other suspcious activity.”
  
  7) Be Nice To Airport Workers. There are two reasons you should be nice to airport workers: 1) No matter how bad your situation is, they’ve been having a worse day, since 5am. They’ve been dealing with jerks and assholes since before you showered this morning. The outlook they face is bleak, because it is YOU. Making their day worse should be a crime. 2) Even if you think the airport worker deserves your contempt, you will not be able to get what you want if they hate you. As their day progresses, their hate is more and more automatic, and you must work harder and harder to not push them over some kind of edge. In fact…
  
  8) Take Gifts To Airport Workers. On your way to the airport, buy flowers or something for your seat-assignment clerk. Give gift certificates at random to anyone in a uniform. Remember that there are security considerations, so choose the gift(s) carefully.
  
  9) Ask. Ask which line to wait in. Ask what the airline can do for you. Ask what the person you’re dealing with can do for you. Remember what Rob Breszny said: “You can have anything you want, if you only ask for it in an unselfish tone of voice.” Talk to the information desk instead of the guy next to you. Make no assumptions. Going to the front of the line, asking what it’s for, and then walking to the end again is quicker than waiting in line to find out you were should have been waiting in another one. The guy at the end of the line probably made the assumption you’re making, and do you really trust that?
  
  10) Human Beings Crave Reassurance. If they can’t have reassurance, they get horribly irrational, making reassurance harder and harder to give. This is an irony of the human condition. Further, if you can give reassurance to an irrational person, that person will follow you off a cliff if you so desire. Is this a responsibility you can deal with?
  
  11) Air Travel Equals Waste. On every leg of the trip I’m on, the plane has been full of people. On the first leg, I overheard the captain of the plane say, “A tush for every cush. A full plane. That’s making a lot of money.” The fundamental flaw here is that a full airplane is equivalent to an untold number of man-hours of misery and grief. First is the baseline set of misery. Travelling at any time by air carries a minimum amount of waiting in line, dealing with irate people, undergoing security checks. These go along with the way airports are set up, and the way the airline industry works. But at peak periods, such as Christmastime, the misery of the travel experience is maximized, while the joy and happiness are driven down into the ground. Every ounce of any sort of wonder you could get from being in an airport or dealing with ticket agents evaporates. This is a social waste; the systems of an airport are poorly designed and not flexible enough. The assignment of success based solely on the economics of that single plane’s expense versus net is horribly short-sighted. A real value to society would be found if the process of travelling on a plane was actually pleasant, or at least somehow sensical.
  
  12) The Only Time Anyone Looks At The Art In The Glass Case Near The Ticket Desks Is When The Ticket Desks Are Closed.
  
  13) Everyone Is As Crazy As Everyone Else. There’s a popular myth perpetuated by everyone in a uniform at an airport, and that is that while you are going crazy with travel plans and late schedules, they are calm, collected, and in control. The truth of the matter is that they’re frazzled, too. Don’t believe the hype. See #7.
  
  14) Cell Phones Really Have Changed The World. Now you can be waiting in line and talking on the phone to whoever was foolish enough to agree to pick you up about how you won’t be making it until the next day.
  
  15) “The baggage carousels are dangerous when in motion. Please do not a sit or allow chilrden to place their hand on the carousel at any time.”
  
  16) Breathe Deeply. This is the fundamental truth of travel. Breathing deeply cures all ills, and allows one to understand that fear, loathing, misery, waiting, and air travel are merely another expression of the human urge to exceed the limits of common sense and good taste. As such, it’s totally hilarious. Laugh out loud.

  • 8:15 pm
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