In a month we’re off to Chicago. And the thought of that makes my butt clench. Tight.
It’s not the flying so much because think about it. Getting from California to Chicago just over one hundred years ago took weeks if not months of treacherous stage-coach travel through scorching deserts and over snowy mountain passes, never mind bouts of cholera and the possibility of Indian attacks.
Luckily, there is a different kind of coach travel these days and I concede that on some flights, especially if a baby is crying, it can feel almost as long and harrowing.
I appreciate the miracle of flight. I really do. I actually love sitting perched in a seat, in an aluminum tube that’s hurtling through the air, watching movies while I snack on things I never eat below 35,000 feet, like bag after bag of potato chips and soda, and then arriving at some far-away destination in the same clothes I put on that very morning.
Here’s the thing that sends me into a tizzy. The before part of flying. The check-in part. The part that makes you regret your trip before you’ve even left the ground. You know what I’m talking about. All of the degrading malarkey (God, I love that word), that every airport in the world has put us through since 911. You can almost hear the sound of your personal freedoms being sucked right out of you over the garbled gate announcements during the two hours of lining up, waiting, wheeling, shuffling, packing and unpacking, waiting, X-raying, virtually stripping; taking off your shoes, belt, jacket, watch, sunglasses, and in one particularly mortifying case—my underwire bra, only to wait in line some more.
It would be comical if it weren’t so sad.
My husband and I fly frequently enough that sometimes the gods deem us worthy and bestow upon us the words TSA precheck at the top of our tickets which I’m happy to report allows us to sidestep some of the madness—but I see you there, hopping up and down on one naked foot, trying to get the other damn boot off while your purse shoots through to the other side unattended, the line backs up, and your other boot falls off the conveyor belt and into another man’s bag.
I feel your pain. I am you. I will be you in a month.
Listen, we have all agreed, as a collective, to hand over our rights to privacy. Into the dumpster that went along with any expectation of expedient air travel as a trade-off to make us feel safe.
I have no choice other than to give up my personal freedoms when I fly, but I will never stop talking about how it used to be.
Here’s the thing, flying used to be glamorous. And fun. You got dressed up. The flight crew engaged in polite small talk, as kids they even used to show us the cockpit. Now it’s locked up tighter than the room where Donald Trump keeps his wigs.
Airports had a buzz of excitement back in the day, not like now, where the low hum of stress meets you at the curb—that is literally where my butt clenching starts. There are airports in foreign countries, (I just saw it recently in Mexico), that have full-on military walking around with assault rifles at the ready. That does not bode well for me. It forces me to drink before I board my flight which not only exacerbates the anxiety it makes me stupid and clumsy.
I have given up my freedoms, I have. But I suppose some part of me thought this would be temporary. You know, maybe for a year or two. Now there is an entire generation that only knows air travel to be this way. This ridiculous, freedom-sucking, unorganized, cluster-fuck of a way.
But I for one will never forget that it was not always like this. That we used to check our bags and walk on planes like civilized human beings. Because if we forget that, IF we accept the way things are now as normal, then, in my opinion, fear and terror have won.
Carry on,
xox
