March 20th, 2005
Beware the Ides of March! (That's only 360 days from now in case you are wondering.)
OK, so as I sit here at the boarding gate in yet another airport somewhere else entirely from where I was 1/2 a day ago (if you get my drift) I think I have finally discovered the secret to getting through that fucking tedious process of having my shoes, coat, groin, and laptop computer screened, scanned, and skimmed: Have a beer too many prior to standing in line.
Yes [he stated unabashedly] it is true: I have cast a couple of sheets to the wind, and after peeing for what seemed an eternity, I greatly enjoyed having big black dudes with little paddles that remind me more of hazing rituals than security checks run scans on my (what must be suspicious-looking) armpits, groin, balls of feet, and backside. I resisted the urge to giggle, of course; no need to press my luck in this. They must regularly rue the day that they signed up for this job. All the "pretty chicks" in the world can't make up for a big white guy like me sticking my otherwise private bits out so that he can run a scanner over them.
Additionally, I precariously stacked my shoes onto my laptop computer into an artistic pyramid sculpture before sending it all through the scanner. It was funny, mind you, even if only I could appreciate the humour. And then don't get me started on the way I stuffed only my toes into my shoes as I walked away from security trailing USB plug-ends and scraps of paper that are supposed to make it to the accounting department of my company, all the time making a cullump-cullump-cullump sound as my shoes slap the marble floors.
Hee hee hee ... and the time positively flew by ... but there are no more bars on this side of the Great Divide, and now I'm worried I'm going to come down before I get into my seat on the plane! I should have had two beers too many ...
* * *
[Later] Naw, as it turns out, that was just enough. I got nestled into my seat on that plane and was soon snoring, irritating my neighbors. It turns out that, for once in my life, I was the obnoxious drunk. Well, the obnoxious sleeping-it-off drunk.
I hastily found my way to this plane but greatly regret my hurry; I bought an expensive cup of strong coffee (that tasted more like lye than anything—not that I know what lye tastes like, mind you, just guessing at that) and because the coffee shop couldn't make change for a Canadian fifty, I had to pay $2.00 American for it. Expensive swill and I only got in about twenty sips before they started announcing people to board the plane. Foolish me, I just lined up behind everyone else for ten minutes ... not as if the plane would take off any faster whether or not I was sitting and sipping coffee for ten minutes first.
I also didn't get a chance to finish charging my laptop's battery with my ill-gotten electricity.
You see, there is a sub-class of us computer geeks who huddle around electrical outlets in airport terminals. We are fringe-dwellers because we often have to plug into those desks that the "ground crew" works at doing ... well, what do they do there anyhow? And I am pretty sure that eventually the airport will put their foot down and stop us from stealing their precious electricity. Why, today alone, I probably nicked at least 3 cents worth (And that's US cents, by the way!)
I am not just making myself enraged by hypothesizing a dark future; I can see their faces. They'd stop us now if they could think of a valid reason. It's only a matter of time before something just possible enough comes into their minds, and up will go a new policy. You just wait and see.
* * *
OK, last little bit of sniveling, then I will leave this traveling whinge alone.
It's bad enough that we are inundated with advertising everywhere we look. Sides of buses, telephone poles—telephone books, fer chrissakes ... But when we get advertising on the radio or TV (and it is always much more invasive than the print ads, isn't it?) we can at least turn it off, or change the channel or station.
Heck, even when we go to movie theatres, we have some control over whether or not we have to watch advertising. We can use the opportunity to pre-open all the crinkly noisy little packages of licorice and other candies, we can take a bathroom break, go buy a box of nachos, or maybe just walk around in the theatre lobby for two or three minutes. Kind of stretch our legs and get acquainted with the ushers.
But on an airplane there is no respite. We are captive audiences on planes, and the advertisers can get us in a headlock and show us their advertising without us being able to exert any control over the ads. I mean, we can close our eyes, plug our ears and chant, "lalalalalala, I can't hear you!" as though we were 5 years old again, but if we have to resort to such ... er ... extremism, then the advertisers have still won, haven't they?
This all reminds me of Alex in A Clockwork Orange who was belted down and forced to watch violence and sexual sadism "treatment" films. He was unable to move, to even blink. Well ... maybe the analogy isn't so good after all ... it's probably not a good idea to liken every airline passenger forced to view advertising to Alex and his droogs ... even if I include my obnoxious drunken self in that group ...