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A Certainty of Doom

I swear, the devil's plan to enslave our souls involves airports. Somehow on our trip last weekend American Airlines managed to lose my carseat and stroller which I gate checked. The airport car rental place didn't have our car reservation as promised. Pixie squealed and squirmed throughout the entire 3.5 hour flight until I just about lost it.

I bought replacement gear yesterday and am 99% sure that United Airlines will find a way to lose them again today. There is no way to have a good experience at an airport. Heaven knows I try. I bring books, extra money for airport goodies, headphones for the plane and pack light. The airports/airlines proceed to break down each and every one of my preparations and turn the day into a living nightmare. It ironic to me that the United States pours so much money and useless precautions into airport security since it's the airports themselves that are the root of most senseless acts of terrorism against our fair people.

Security check points where you have to take off shoes, jackets, belts, disassemble your child's stroller, and quiver when your contraband toothpaste is discovered stuffed discreetly inside your shoe are the tip of the iceberg. There are the gigantic airports that give you 10 minutes to reach your connecting flight that is 2 miles and 10 terminals away. Obnoxious pilots that chatter into the speaker every five minutes throughout the flight about cloud formations and wake up your sleeping baby. And my favorite, the Gestapo at the curb outside the airport who flash their lights and bang on your hood when your car has been idle for more than 10 seconds because you stopped to look at a map (or maybe you were assembling a bomb? You tricky vixen, you!)

So it is with dread that I unpack and re-pack my suitcase today (no, I never managed to unpack from the last trip). It's not a question of if something will go wrong, but how many things. I feel like I'm packing for my doom. As Heidi Klum would say, Auf Wiedersehen. No, I'm not being dramatic, Spike.
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Unknown said…
I vote 16 things will go wrong.
8/30/2006 1:53 PM
Unknown said…
I want out of Utah. I'm tired of living here.
8/30/2006 1:53 PM
Anonymous said…
I flew just a few weeks before the new regulations were implemented(no liquids unless they are in your blood stream, etc.) I was happy when wearing flip-flops got me out of having to remove my shoes at security. I have heard that ALL footwear will be removed now. Don't they know that is a health code violation? Grosses me out! I will have to resort to wearing socks (which I rarely do) unless they start requiring sock removal! Not this germ phobe! Not until they start supplying disposable spa flip-flops!!!
8/30/2006 2:05 PM
Sarah said…
Yeah, the feet odor thing is the last straw. It's like making you hit yourself. I always feel tempted to warn them about the odor of my shoes but they probably have some rule that automatically gets me locked up for threatening them with foot fumes. So gross.
8/30/2006 3:51 PM
Torchness said…
Okay, traveling sucks. However: at least you weren't flying to the US from England 2 days after they caught the terrorists. You'd think, yippee, we caught some terrorists! Ah, not so much. We flew out of London 2 days later to go back to Dallas, and from start to finish it was a beating. First, we had to check everything we had brought for six weeks-- including our precious laptops. We carried just our wallets and our passports in clear plastic sacks like refugees. No chapstick, no books, no ipods, not even a durn pen to do the unnecessarily hard crossword puzzle in the airplane magazine. I got searched not once but twice by two very handsy older women. I'm not sure you've quite understood air travel until you've had certain parts of your body... well, touched indecently in full view of hundreds of other disgruntled passengers. But apparently, I look like an Irish terrorist.

So with ten hours and nothing to do on the plane, what do you think we did? We watched movies and did a wine tasting. Well, so they only had two different types of wine. But we tasted them a lot.
8/30/2006 6:22 PM
Anonymous said…
Now you feel my pain everyday! Have fun. At least the are being a little more lenient on "liquid" items. And I have been told to enjoy the pat downs... they are a free massage. I don't know what kind of massages those people get! Don't sign me up, thank you very much. SLC security is nice, so something to look forward to on the way home :)
8/30/2006 8:28 PM
Shiloah Baker said…
I hate traveling with children period, but in airplanes its a million times worse!
When we lived in Germany, I went home to visit TX for two weeks. On the way back, I'm sick with pneumonia, pregnant with #5 and traveling with four kids by myself! Then the impatient Germans around me on the flight almost got into a fist fight we me over my toddler fussing most of the flight and me trying to sleep through it! I told him that if he could do better, HAVE at it!! ahhhh the miserable memories! ROFL

Shiloah Baker from A Homemaking Journey & Homemaking Cottage
8/30/2006 11:09 PM
Anonymous said…
Hi Sarah, coincidentally I just ran across this article from Newsweek, pretty funny about common sense and airport security: Flying Blind
8/31/2006 6:31 AM
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