Traveling In Bumfuck

It is I, RenegadeLiz, trying desperately to distract myself from my fast impending move to the midwest. So I will regale you with my recent traveling tale of woe.

For me, traveling is usually an experience that ends up being balanced. Things are shitty, the flight attendants are rude, my fellow travelers are stupid, and I’m late, but I get to where I’m going. To me, that usually balances out the entire shitty experience.

But there are some travel injustices that are too great to be ignored and balanced out by simply reaching your destination.

Stupidity of Travelers:

So I made the effort, in light of the current security “situation” at airports all over the US, to be at the airport early for my flight. I was up at 4:30, packed, dressed, and ready by 5:10 for my 7am flight. I had the time to sit with my groggy parents until 5:30, when my dad brought me to the airport. He diligently waited with me at the Delta counter as I stood in line to be checked in. I was lucky in that about five minutes after we got there, ten people got in line behind me. However, the Delta employee at the desk (who I’ll get to in a minute) decided that after checking in the person in front of me, she wanted to make sure (at 5:55) that there was no one else trying to check in for the 6:20 Cincinnati flight. Of course there was someone who was trying to get on the flight.

But that wasn’t the half of it. A salty, elderly Maine woman and her rotund, addle-brained son, walked up to the counter and gave their name. The woman was trying to get on the flight, but it wasn’t that simple. She hadn’t bought the ticket yet. Her, or her obviously brilliant son, had only made a reservation. They hadn’t paid yet, and they didn’t even have their reservation number. The son was on his cell phone, trying to get the number out of what was most likely a hapless and annoyed Delta reservations agent.

It took 20 minutes for this woman to get her ticket. The Delta agent had to call up (at 6:10!) and ask them to hold the flight. This, as I understand it, was an FAA violation. You must be checked in 30 minutes prior to takeoff. Not in line to check in. Not in line to buy your fucking ticket. CHECKED IN. Not a hard concept to grasp, I feel. The Cincinnati flight left almost a half hour late, as I understand it, because of this STUPID woman. After she got her ticket, they rushed her baggage onto the plane, and told her to go right to the head of the long, slow security line. But she didn’t. 10 minutes after she’d gone up, I went to the security line. She was standing in the middle of it, oblivious to the inconvenience she was causing the other people who’d bought their tickets and followed the rules.

I was so annoyed on behalf of all the rule-following, intelligent Cincinnati passengers that when I saw her stupid, inconsiderate son on my flight to Boston (the son who made his mother, idiot though she may have been, carry her own bags), I cursed the stupid lobsters he brought on the plane.

Vindictiveness and Incompetence of Airline Employees:

Never underestimate the small minded mentality of small town airport employees. They take their time because they have nothing else to do. Then they get annoyed at you for getting annoyed at their lack of…doing their Goddamn job. I got more than a little annoyed at the Delta chick, mostly because she didn’t realize that there was a bit of URGENCY in this situation. There were 20 people in line by the time she was finished with Mrs. Idiot and Son, and it was half because of her customers, and half because she was taking her sweet old time, chatting on the phone with her friend at another Delta office.

It’s hard for me to hide my annoyance with incompetence, so I wasn’t Mrs. Happy Sunshine Person when I got up to the ticket counter. Delta Bitch apparently took offense to this. She took her time with my ticket, rolled her eyes at me when I asked her for my license back, and then flagged my boarding pass for extra security screening. Yes, she used the four little s’s of revenge, placed at the bottom of my ticket.

Now, some of you might think that it wasn’t revenge. I can see that. And it may not have been. But Jesus, if she had the choice, what was she going to do? Let me pass by, having been justifiably annoyed (but never rude) with her, or is she going to do the only thing she could do to exact her revenge on the mean twenty-something who hurt her fragile little ticket agent feelings, and tag me for extra security screening? Yeah.

It’s no secret that I absolutely cannot stand the extra screening. It’s an annoying hassle, and pointless, especially considering who they flag. Me, a 92 year old woman who could barely walk, and the mother of 3. Yes, we’re all huge security threats. Give me a fucking break.

Small Airports and TSA Security:

Along the same lines as the small airport employee thing, TSA agents in small airports are also very, very self-important. My airport considers itself the “first front” against airline terrorism, and it doesn’t help those of us trying to get the hell out of there on the shuttle.

I’ve been through the extra screening before, as everyone has been, so I know the drill. I’m herded in to the glassed in screening area, and told to sit down. The fifty-something TSA agent comes up to me and starts telling me about the procedures. I’m only half listening, and so when she pauses in her spiel, I stand up, assuming that she wants to actually start the tedious screening process. The TSA agent takes a step back from me, raises her finger, and says “Miss, sit down. No, don’t talk, just sit down. SIT DOWN, MISS! SIT DOWN!!”

At this point, I’m half afraid that she’s going to pull out her…mace? Gun? Whatever it is she might have. I’m half afraid that she’s going to attack me with something, and half trying not to laugh out loud IN HER FACE. So I sit down and say “You paused, ma’am, I’m sorry, I thought you wanted to get started with the whole process.” I’m then treated to a lecture about how I should listen when people are speaking to me. Yes, obviously, when a bitchy TSA agent is telling me something that I ALREADY KNOW in a patronizing tone of voice, I’m obligated to listen.

She roughly frisks me (I can’t get a young, attractive guy to pat me down?) and grabs my stuff to look through it. After COMBING through my stuff with a fine tooth comb, she hands it back to me. “Thank you.” She says. Nothing, I say back. I affix her with an annoyed, angry stare, and walk away. “Well, she didn’t even say thank you back.” the woman says loudly to her coworker.

OH MY GOD. Yes, I’m going to THANK YOU for being rude to me, lecturing me, and inconveniencing me. You are so put upon! You deserve a thank you! Being a TSA agent in a small town with a fraction of the air travel of Boston must be so taxing and hard. Why isn’t there a TSA agent appreciation day? BECAUSE EVERYONE WOULD SPIT AT YOU. Jesus Christ. She wanted me to thank her back.