And flights are always overbooked, a practice that would be illegal in any other business. If you buy a theater ticket, that seat in the theater is waiting for you. If you buy an airplane ticket, they may sell your seat to someone else, betting that both of you won't show up and they can get paid twice.
1. Take off your coat, shoes, and belt and pile them in a little gray bin.
2. Take your laptop out of its case and put it in another bin
3. Put everything in your pockets into a third bin.
4. Don't forget bins for your carry-on luggage.
5. And your toiletries, including expensive carry-on sizes of your toothpaste and mouthwash.
5. Follow the orders that the gruff TSA agent barks at you.
6. Collect your stuff and get dressed again.
7. Replenish your water supply with their expensive bottled water.
Sometimes I've just said "forget it," and turned around to go home.
In 2011, University of Cincinnati architectural student Aaron Tobe performed a protest. When he went through security, he took off his shirt, revealing te Fourth Amendment (against "unreasonable searches") on his chest.
He was arrested for "disorderly conduct" and interrogated for 45 minutes about whether he belonged to a terrorist group and whether he was planning to blow anything up. Finally the charges were dropped.
Maybe they just wanted to spend 45 minutes staring at Aaron's chest.
In the years following 9/11, I was chosen "at random" for an extra pat-down every time every time I got on a plane.
Every time, without exception.
Eventually I figured it out: I wore a beard, I had a leather jacket, and I traveled light. Terrorist!
The beard came off, the jacket came off, I brought along an extra suitcase, and the pat-downs stopped.
But I'm still chosen "at random" nearly every time for those special scanners that show you naked. I've had my penis on display more often at airports than at bath houses.
Maybe the TSA agents just want to check out my package.
See also: 36 Hours of Cruising at Lambert International Airport
Why don't we all just fly naked? That would make the whole TSA ordeal moot. We could all pack everything into our checked bags. Somehow take care of the electronics that we cannot seem to live without for that few hours in the air. And then just enjoy the flights au naturel. I know this would be a HUGE leap for american prudish culture. But what the fuck. If the Fed gov't can create the TSA and change the rules very inconsistently and often, why not declare that airplanes are now clothes-free zones?
ReplyDeleteI would only agree to fly naked if the flights were male or female only, like locker rooms. I definitely don't want to be sitting on a crowded plane surrounded by naked lady parts.
DeleteI agree very much so about the overbooking of flights. In any other business it would be illegal to do that and then hope that neither person booked for the same seat on a flight show up so that the airline can keep the money without having had provided any service.
ReplyDeleteIt's one of those "our business model requires you be subjected to this bullshit" tropes. That's why Uber, AirBNB, and the like are tech companies: Of they were cab companies or hotel chains, they'd have to pay insurance. But find a clever way around the law, and the Tom Friedmans of the world are amazed enough to think this wonderful thing is the way of the future. (It apparently doesn't take much to impress a third-rate reporter on the Lebanon conflict turned tenth-rate pundit who literally wrote a book called The World is Flat.)
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