King of commiseration writes on the chaos that is air travel
I don’t think it will surprise anyone, but I love travel. Air travel in particular. Humanity always wanted to fly into the heavens, and today – as long as you do not mind spending an obscene amount of money to sit squeezed in between two people who somehow are the exact types you find most annoying – you can!
I am actually convinced that all airlines have access to immensely personal data about me that tells them all my pet peeves. In addition, they have the technology to look at their entire list of customers and picking out the ones who fit those specifications.
Still, air travel is truly impressive if you think about it. No matter where you live in the world, you can get to the other end of the world in less than a day. Unless you are poor, but then you should not have such dreams anyway. Work at your job, do not buy that Starbucks coffee, pull yourself by your bootstraps and maybe someday you can take a trip to the backyard. Hail capitalism!
But I digress. What is probably the most impressive thing about modern day airlines is the level of multitasking they can do. While you are on a plane going from Canada to say, Germany, your checked bags could be headed to Australia!
Now, I know you are thinking that this is awful. But that is because you have gone soft and become boring. Your ancestors rode into battle on horseback. Are you really going to whine about how your toothbrush and PJs are not there when you land in a foreign land where you know nothing and probably do not even speak the language?
Improvise! Adapt! Overcome!
Or maybe you are one of the smart ones. You have decided that the possibility of your bags getting a tour of the Sydney Opera House is not for you, and will just be taking carry-on. I can see the college education is paying off. I just hope you do not need any fluids, at all. That includes your toothpaste, shaving supplies, any skincare products. As we know, terrorists can use any of those things to take over the plane, and then eventually, the world. Oh, and your laptop, phone, and anything else that looks the slightest bit like it uses technology will be checked with a scrutiny that was clearly not applied when checking Donald Trump’s tax returns.
Once you have made through all those checks, you can do two things. First, immediately buy the biggest pack of toothpaste known to man, at the highest profit margins known to any life form, from one of those stores right past security. It’s almost like they just did not want you to save some money… Anyhow.
The other thing you can do is board and try to find space for your bags. If you were not one of the first three people to board, this will mean a lot of schlepping around, and then stressing the entire flight that you do not forget which overhead bin your bags were in.
Again, don’t complain. Your ancestors fought the Nazis. At least, with things how they are these days, I hope they did? Who knows anymore. Clearly not Anthony Rota.
So anyway, maybe you got through all your flights with minimal hassles. Maybe you were not ‘randomly chosen for extra security checking.’ I can verify that their selection process is truly random, because it always picks me and all my South Asian friends! Surely that cannot be planned? That would imply terrible things! So, it must be random. Simple and logical.
But like I was saying: you’ve reached your destination, your bags are with you, and you are about to embark on an adventure. I just hope that up in the skies, in that huge metal cabin shared with an assortment of the strangest humans to ever live, you did not catch some novel virus which you then spread to all of Europe and shut down the world for years.
I know, I know! Flights of fancy, right? Like that could ever…
