A few weeks after September 11th I had to fly to New York. For some reason, I was the only person in the world who figured out that flying was briefly going to be far safer than it had ever been before. Did everyone really think that terrorists were going to attack the same way twice? Give me a break. I’m just assuming they're going to use a bus next time to try to blow up the Lincoln Tunnel.
At any rate, I was a college kid at the time, traveling home with a duffel-bag full of dirty laundry. Now, if you know anything about being a college student, you know that if there’s a visit to the folks’ coming up, you don’t wash any clothing. At home, Cleaning clothes is a free activity and those quarters could be used for much greater purposes. Like beer. Or…ok, beer was pretty much all I bought.
Because all my day-to-day clothes were filthy enough to be classified as medical waste, I was forced to travel in my less-warn threads: the dress clothes. So there I was, low 20s, looking as if I was in my mid-teens, painfully white, and dressed in my best clothes when I was asked to step out of the line by a few angry looking security guard.
They took me aside and three security personal proceeded to drill me on my reasons for travel. “We’re going to have to search your bags, sir. Is there anything hazardous that you’re carrying with you?”
“That depends on your definition of ‘hazardous.’” I replied. “All I’ve got is dirty laundry, but at this point my socks might be classified as biological weapons.”
It was not the first time my humor went unappreciated. I doubt it will be the last.
I was searched before checking in, immediately after checking in, when I went through the metal detectors, once while waiting to board, and when they announced that they were going to do a few random bag-checks, you’ll never guess whose name they called.
At this point, I'd had more people had paw through my underwear than Jenna Jameson ever had. I was seriously considering how I could hide some anthrax so the security guards would stop looking so disappointed.
I think it’s good that they randomly search 5 people a flight. I think the idea is LESS good if they’re all going to be me.
The second time I came to odds with Airport Security was even stranger. I was a year out of college and decided to go up to visit my old school for the big party weekend. I left on a Thursday morning and, the second I set foot outside of work on Wednesday night I raised my hands in the air and yelled:
“I vow no liquid will pass my lips except alcohol from now until I step off the plane on Sunday night!”
Yea and it was so.
So four days later I arrived at Buffalo International Airport and walked up to the deli in the terminal. It was 8:15 in the morning, I hadn’t shaved in five days, I’d had a total of 10 hours sleep the whole trip so my eyes had more rings than a transvestite street-walker, and I was falling over drunk.
I somehow steered myself up to the counter.
“What’ll it be?” asked the clerk.
“Give me a cinnamon bun and a Heineken.” I demanded.
“Sir this is a dry county on Sundays. I can’t serve you alcohol.”
“What!!! This is an international airport! You’re not technically part of the county! That’s why you can sell tax-free items in the duty-free shop!”
“Sorry, I can’t.”
“I find this law to be discriminatory! I’m not Christian! Why the fuck can’t I get drunk just because religious zealots think consuming alcohol is insulting to Jesus?”
“I’m calling the manager.”
“Good! Call the manager! And tell him to bring me a fucking cinnamon bun and a Heineken!”
The manager somehow failed to be swayed by my arguments. Maybe it was because he wasn’t a lawyer. More probably it was because he hadn’t drunk 30 beers and a bottle of Jack over the course of the last 48 hours. Either way, the end result was that I was faced with a choice: fly home, or spend the night in solitary. Neither case involved me getting my beer, so I opted to avoid a prison record.
After considering my history at airports, I’m beginning to second guess saying that I wanted to have sex on an airplane. If I managed to fuck up something like buying a beer, imagine what could go wrong if I bent a girl over the sink of an airplane restroom. Somehow the words “International Incident” and “Federal Marshals with guns drawn” keep echoing through my head.
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