Today is day I leave the US, and head to Great Britain to live for six months.
So it begins. I am in terminal of Detroit Metro airport, waiting for the plane that is going to take me to Chicago and then on to London. I have no idea why I’m going to Chicago first, but that’s all right I guess.
As I wait here, I am a little less pissed off than I was about 45 minutes ago. These new post 9/11 airport security measures are a load of crap making the already unpleasant experience of flying with an airline even less so. Plus its compounded with the fact that there are nothing but absolute morons working here in the airport. I am moving to London for six months. I am not going anywhere for such a long time without one of my bikes, so I brought the Gary Fisher to ride around town with the slicks and then put the knobby’s back on hopefully for some cross country riding in the hills of England.
Anyway, to help us all feel more secure, airport security is now required to scan every piece of luggage that comes through to be checked. My bike case, which I had very diligently packed over a week ago, would not fit into their new multi thousand dollar scanner, so they had to open up the case to make sure I wasn’t smuggling over stolen handlebars or a mail order bride or plastic explosives. What got me upset was watching these people operate, and not witness one shred of intelligence in them at all. Sometimes you really can gauge a person’s level of comprehension by the look on their face. The men handling my bike case had little comprehension of anything other than when they were going to get off the job and head down to the local sports bar to hit on some bucked tooth waitress.
The bike box is held tightly closed with six nylon and plastic clasping straps. Anyone who has ever used something that has clasping straps probably knows that the easiest way to use them is to lengthen the strap from the clasp, make the connection between the sections of the clasp and then to pull the strap tightly in order to secure the link. Am I wrong on this? Isn’t this pretty much common sense?
I can answer that. No, it is not common sense. I watched the boneheaded ‘security’ personnel open the case up, with no regard whatsoever for the contents inside, pull the padding apart between the layers of the case, and then try to put the case back together without loosening the straps of the case. *Sigh* At least I can sigh and write about this now without having to feel my blood reach the boiling point.
Watching this unfold before my eyes yesterday in Detroit, I have to wonder how safe are we in the skies these days anyway? What are the numbers for attempts at bringing in any dangerous items onto a plane before and after Sept 11, 2001? I bet that they are not really all that high, and that you are far more likely to be assaulted in other more violating ways. Violating ways of destruction on one’s self such as being struck by repeated bolts of lightning or being swept up by a tornado in the middle of Kansas. The FAA, or the the ‘guvament‘ is only playing a numbers game and using the inherent fear that we all have in order to pick through all of out personal belongings. The numbers do not support the level of intrusiveness that every single passenger must endure before they get on a flight. I am not opposed to having my things checked, but I am against not being able to touch the items after handing it over. The security system is simply run inefficiently.
All I wanted to do was to help them put the thing back together, as I know that they had never seen anything like it before. Even I had some trouble getting it together and I had packed the damn thing a few times before. What the heck was I going to do, anyway, worst case scenario? Slip a bomb into the case? Sprinkle the anthrax from my pocket over the bike? Give me a break, … please just give me a break. I just hope my baby is okay.
…
I’m on the second and final leg of the flight from America to Great Britain. We haven’t yet gotten to the runway, and are waiting to taxi. I can’t believe this, but I have finally managed to score an exit row. I have scored not simply an exit row but one of those huge gaps of space between sections of the airplane, with the wall in between on which they mount one of those large LCD’s for whatever crappy movies they’re going to show. I have a huge screen right in front of me, an I literally have five feet of leg room for the entire length of the flight from Chicago to London Heathrow. I am so excited by this prospect of leg room, it is almost indescribable.
…
Even better, just got to see Adaptation again, a movie about a self indulgent writer. Seems appropriate rereading some of the things that I have written before. I am in this strange place in between time zones. I don’t know if it is still the 7th, as it was on the day that I left America, or if it is the 8th , as it will the morning of when I land at Heathrow.
We are over the Atlantic, finally. The informational screen that they have is great for a distraction on such a long flight. We are two time zones from the point of departure, and we are still three time zones from the point of arrival. So I guess that there is really a means to determine when it is that we are. The last body of land that we flew over was Newfoundland. We passed over a bit of Nova Scotia. Even though I wasn’t ever on the ground there, Mom will be pleased to hear that.
1955 Miles to London. 44 degrees Fahrenheit outside of the plane. Ground Speed 613 mph, altitude 37000 ft.