Vacations have several stages. They start with the stage of eager anticipation, with the traveler sitting around like a kid waiting for his parents to wake up so he can rip his Christmas presents open. Unfortunately, the Christmas analogy ends there… unless, in order to get to the inside of the present, the child has to tear apart an electrified barbed wire wrapper that fries him like an egg on a sidewalk in
Airports, in a nutshell.
I recently traveled to the dirrty south, and decided to document my wonderful travel process, since those of you who know me know that I just loooove flying. Interesting… Word thinks I was trying to spell “dirty”, and even autocorrected me. Suck it, Microsoft Spell Check, you pompous piece of crap. Andrew: 1, Spellcheck: 7369… but I’m catching up, and that’s what counts.
The Incredible Journey begins at the asscrack of dawn, and unlike the 5th grade book, it does not involve any pets trying to find their way home. Sure, the flight may not be until mid-morning, but my father always seems to belong to the “let’s get there 37 hours early even though half the planes we’ve ever been on were delayed” school of thought. The car ride to the airport goes rather smoothly, but as soon as we hop out, it’s made clear that we’re going to continue rushing. My dad rams the cart into the curb, discovers it won’t wheel over, then backs up one step and rams it again, causing half the bags to fall onto the sidewalk. This is followed by a frenzied panic of scooping them all up and continuing like crazies down the terminal. Our mad dash, which makes Michael Johnson look like Jerome Bettis, catapults the airport security level past all the citrus colors and into Blood Red, as they wonder why the man with all that luggage is making a mad dash towards the security gate. But hey, you know the saying… “If at first you don’t succeed, heave everyone else’s luggage onto the sidewalk.”
Once inside, after waiting in a line of 100 people where everyone seems to think that standing 4 inches behind me and breathing heavily on the back of my neck will somehow make me move up faster to check in, we finally make our way to the security check. Let me give you a piece of advice: always, ALWAYS, wear socks when you go to the airport. Apparently, my shoes now need to be x-rayed, since they could be weapons. This idea was probably caused by The Shoe Incident of 1995, when a man took his shoe off and beat four people to death with it. Meanwhile, the poor saps who forgot to wear socks must walk barefoot on a floor that even a fungus-infested, athlete’s-foot-covered locker room shower floor wouldn’t touch with a 10 foot pole.
After finally making it through the security checkpoint, we arrive at the gate, where the television is set to CNN, which is currently informing us that airports are not yet safe enough… always a comforting thought as the last thing to see before boarding an airplane. Fortunately, the headline says “Winning War on Terror?”, which makes me laugh as I think of “I’m Ron Burgundy?”. And speaking of movie references, am I the only person who, when you get to the front of the ticket line, just wants to whip out a badge and yell “don’t worry… I’m a limo driver!” and dart down the tunnel towards the plane?
Upon finally boarding the plane, you’re always forced to sit there for another hour or so, hanging out on the runway, with the pilot occasionally coming on the intercom to inform you that there’s a little bit of traffic, just in case you’re too stupid to allow the 39 fucking planes sitting outside your window make you realize it on your own.. Which always makes me wonder… if every flight since the Wright brothers has had to sit on the runway for at least 20 minutes, why not just let us all hang out in the airport for the extra 20 minutes before boarding, instead of packing us like sardines into seats where I always get stuck behind the guy who reclines his seat? (On a side note, funny story: I know a guy who’s probably about 6’4” and a very strong 240, who decided he would loudly comment on the fact that he hates when the guy in front of him reclines all the way into his knees, which caused the leaner in front to begin turning around yelling “you know, all I want is a little slee-”, and then stopped mid-sentence when he realized who he was picking a fight with, and promptly turned around and shut the hell up for the rest of the plane ride. Stories like this never cease to amuse me.)
Eventually, we get up in the air, and while there are no snakes on my plane, there are a hell of a lot of shakes, which mixes around the liquid in my bladder to the point that I can’t hold it in anymore, and have to use the “lavatory”, which is dumbass-speak for “bathroom.” Whenever I have to urinate on a plane, I know what the Hunchback of Notre Dame must feel like when he has to piss. My head constantly bumps into the ceiling as the turbulence makes even the most skilled urinator spray like a defective sprinkler. On a related note, I believe it’s physically impossible for someone my size to join the mile high club, unless it’s with a dwarf.
After finally landing, you get the joy of standing around by the baggage claim watching bag after bag that isn’t yours go around the conveyor belt and disappear into the mysterious other side of the wall, which I’m fairly certain is secretly the location of 72% of the world’s sweatshops. However, the baggage claim can be fun; simply use it as an opportunity to throw out cheesy pickup lines to people from thousands of miles away. I recommend finding a girl with a small suitcase and saying something along the lines of “hey baby, I noticed you don’t have much baggage. What do you say you and I travel to the land of intimacy?” This seems like a good time to remind you that sunglasses are vital for any beach vacation, as they’ll also defend you from the mace that will inevitably be sprayed in your direction after lines like this one.
One final note on traveling: don’t forget, rental cars are the perfect tools for practicing your e-brake 180’s and drifting techniques.
