Monday, August 14, 2006
Current mood: annoyed

Since we’re psychic, once again we were traveling right in the middle of a big security freakout. Whoopee.

Very early thursday morning, we were lined up on the sidewalk and some staffer was wiping down each pocket of each suitcase with a pad before each flyer could check their bags. Some passerby wandered by our line and mentioned that we couldn’t bring drinks on the plane. Everyone on that sidewalk had had to get up and haul ass to the airport far too early to have watched any news reports, so this was handy that some dude mentioned the drink thing to those of us in line.

But of course, it wasn’t until all of us checked our baggage and went inside, that we heard any announcements about not bringing toothpaste etc on the plane. The announcements were hastily thrown together so they went on about toothpaste and creams without mentioning the more prevalent problem items such as lipstick.

So you had tens of thousands of women check all their bags at the curb over the weekend, then get inside and find out that much of the expensive makeup in their purses (dudes, makeup is EXPENSIVE) had to be tossed.

No-brainer: how about a sign on the sidewalk telling women to quickly switch their lipstick/makeup from their purses to the suitcase they’re about to check? How about using the sidewalk PA system?

I thought to myself “Well, it’s just the first day and they’re disorganized. By the end of the day they’ll realize how ridiculous it is that they’re having to confiscate & dispose of all this stuff indoors when they could just get it taken care of out on the sidewalk.”

But no-o-o-o. On Sunday when we came back, the airports were STILL letting everyone check bags on the sidewalk with no signs, no lists & no announcements — so that once they got indoors with their purses, they would have no options when staffers started taking their fluids, creams and pastes.

You may think we should’ve all known exactly what things must be checked, but the lists weren’t obvious, and a lot of people (like ourselves) were at events all weekend and still might not have seen the airline news before flying on Sunday.

One little kid getting on our flight got her playdoh confiscated. :(

Sunday we had a fun time. 5 staffers peered at Jon’s bag on the xray screen, arguing amongst themselves. A fellow wearing latex gloves pulled us aside and he went through Jon’s bag. As he was opening it he said something to Jon to the effect of “So what are you, some sort of photographer?” To which we both said we were. The guy carefully opened both bulb boxes and gingerly pulled out each light bulb. “We don’t see these very much” he said. I’m sure Jon was thinking the same thing I was. (”What, you’ve never seen a little glass thing with a filament inside it? It’s called a light bulb.”) Then the guy went apopleptic over a small jar of hummus. He didn’t know what hummus was and was all freaked out about the jar. We pointed out that the airline had sold it to us on the previous flight. He didn’t seem to understand. I pointed out that we bought it as part of a snack pack — and he had, just now, taken the jar out of the snack pack (which was a clearly marked box).

So we said, “Look, we didn’t eat the hummus at the time because we didn’t particularly like it. Why don’t you just throw it away so we can move on.” He said no, now he had to check with a supervisor. He had difficulty getting one but finally a supervisor came over, looked at the jar of hummus and gave it thumbs down — and they threw it away without further inspection. Just like we had suggested in the first place. Duh.

Sunday night when we returned to our starting place and were leaving the airport, they STILL were not utilizing sidewalk signs or the sidewalk PA to tell people what objects to switch from carryon to checked baggage. I don’t know why the airports are so stupid. The activity inside would all go much faster if they would inform people sufficiently to have everything taken care of on the sidewalk first. Again, duh!

Alright, I’m done venting! lol :)