The first wrinkle I ran into was the lack of parking at said airport.  I had thought it might be a problem but before I left I checked the airport’s website which showed hundreds of open spots in their economy lot ($12 a day isn’t terribly economical).  But it was closed when I got there.  This being Washington DC, there’s no where else to park with0ut a permit or a room reservation at a hotel, so I was forced to park in the daily lot ($20 a day).  I was in a ripe mood by then.

 I did a self-service check-in and moved my seats around a bit.  Not that I really needed to, but I like shuffling up the seats.  When it came time to pay for my bags, the computer said, “They’re Free, man!”  American Airlines is pretty informal I guess.  I printed my boarding passes and noticed that in big bold letters it said “PRIORITY ACCESS”  I didn’t what that meant so I asked the guy at the desk.

“Hey what’s all this priority access stuff here?”

“That entitles you to have free bags, priority security, priority seating and access to our lounge in Chicago.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Huh.”

The tickets were a gift so I figured they were a super gift.

I made my way to the security area ready to make a little triangle over my head and do the shoes, belt, computer thing and saw a sign with a friendly arrow saying “Priority Access This Way”.  So that way I went. 

It led to a little room where there was a man in a tailed tuxedo who asked if he could take my coat.  Well dressed thief I thought.

He took my coat and carry on and set them beside a lazy boy recliner and asked if I’d like to relax and have tea and biscuits while they x-rayed by bag.  I said no.  I got ready to take my shoes off to send through too, but Jeeves said that wouldn’t be necessary.  Another person brought me a glass of champagne and I wondered whether I should go to Iowa at all or just live here in Priority Land.

Jeeves brought me my coat and bag and said something like, “Your wares have been approved and you may egress through the rear doors.  Have a jolly good flight and a very merry christmas to you, sir.”

I said thanks.

I walked out, never being x-rayed and headed to my gate.  About then I wanted a biscuit and realized I blew my moment to get one.

I saw one of those Pizza Hut huts and decided some morning pepperoni would do the trick.  Except they didn’t have any.  They had omelette pizzas.  That’s some serious bull crap right there, man.  You’re Pizza Hut.  If you’re open, sell normal pizza.  If I wanted a Root-N-Tooty Fresh-N-Fruity pizza I’d have gone to IHOP.  I punched the manager in the eye to illustrate my point.  He understood.

I sat around a bit waiting for boarding.  People watching in airports is fun.  The Las Vegas airport is the best for it.  You can always tell the arrivals from the departures.  The arrivals are all “Woo-Hoo!  Gimmee a 200 proof drink in a giant plastic boot!”  The departing say nothing… they stare at the floor and wonder at what point in their visit did they lose control of their life and pondered the taste of shoe leather.

While I was waiting, a mom-type came to the counter and said she needed her ticket adjusted to allow for her to carry on her child in her lap.  I glanced over at her child and it was a pudgy little thing in dire need of a face wash.  His name may have well been Booger McSnooty-Contagion.  I thought to myself, maybe you should just stuff him in the overhead bin and call him a carry on.  Just then I looked up and Booger MC had climbed into one of those “Is Your Carry On Too Big” boxes to prove he could indeed fit as a carry on.  Problem solved.  I laughed out loud at the kid trying to be luggage.

The first flight from DC to Chicago was fairly uneventful. 

I did at least get an attractive seat mate.  When I fly alone, I do this mental game as I see people walking up the aisle of the plane.  I look them over and begin chanting “Please don’t sit by me, Please don’t sit by me.”  Or if they get a positive review I begin wishing “Sit here!”  Never once has “Please don’t sit here” saved me.  For once though, “Sit here!” worked and I rode next to an attractive lawyer who let me have the arm rest.

That was about it until Chicago… and then things went bad.

• The Ice Bus
• Foreigners are the bane of expediance
• Free Wifi is only cool if it’s not WiCrap
• Every female college athlete from Illinios is on this flight
• Every family with ill behaved children from Illinios is on this flight
• Guess who I’ll end up sitting next to for the next two hours
• Do children come with indoor voices anymore or is that an outdated concept?
• Hey my flight’s delayed!
• IAD, consider cleaning the mensroom.  Please.  It’s like someone declared a poopy jihad in there.
• I’m going to trademark “poopy jihad”

“Are you getting enough oxygen, kid?”

He didn’t stop talking for the entire fifteen minute drive over to the airport.  I knew it was fifteen minutes because it was now 50 minutes until my plane was scheduled to take off.  I also remembered hearing something about bags not checked in 45 minutes before take off were likely to be shipped to Guam.  Unless you were flying to Guam, in which case your bags were sent to the North Pole and regifted by Santa Claus to needy kids in southeast Asia.  I pulled out my cell phone and stared at the time.  I tried to do a Jedi mind trick on the phone to see if I could get it to roll back about 15 minutes but all that happened was that I got dizzy and got the A-Team theme song stuck in my head. 

“Next stop, Lufthansa, Air Lingus, Air Tran…”

“When I get to Texas I’m going to go to McDonald’s and get an ice cream cone with a hamburger and a pickle…”

“Quiet kid, this is important.”

“… Nippon Airlines, and Saudi Air.  Passengers flying Southwest Airlines will need to exit the bus and proceed on foot through the construction zone, cross runway 35 right, and pick up your boarding passes at the new Southwest ticket center and portable toilet.  Next stop, United, US Air, and Ted.”

“OK, kid.  Get your gummy bears together because we’re going to have to hustle.”

All 300 people on the bus tried to get off at the same time.  The jam at the door was insane.  Then the kid let out a shrill yell.  Apparently someone had stepped on him or hit him with a suitcase because he let out one of those loud “kid in distress” yells.  The other passengers parted like the Red Sea upon hearing it.  I suddenly had an idea.

“Keep yellin’ kid.  I’ll buy you a sno-cone or something.”

“Sno-cones aren’t as good as ice cream sandwiches because if you…”

“Less chat more yelling!”

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” 

“Awesome. Let’s go!”

People looked our way, startled by the screaming kid.  But they also quickly got out of the way.  I ran with the kid through the crowd quickly.  It was like following an ambulance in rush hour traffic.  I saw the line for check in at the United desk.  It was easily going to take 30 minutes to get through it.

“OK people, coming through.  Special needs kid, step asside, excuse me, move it people!”

A bitter woman piped up from the back of the line, “He isn’t a special needs child. You’re cutting in line!”

“Does he sound normal to you lady?  Here, listen to this.  Kid, tell her about your truck and ice cream.”

The kid stopped screaming and turned around.  Without taking a breath he launched into a long story about trucks and ice cream. 

I scanned the ticket counter and spotted an unoccupied attendant.

“Hi, I found this kid on the bus and he’s going to Texas, can you help him from here?”

“You found a kid on a bus?”

“He’s that weird kid over there with the afro and the orange circle around his mouth.”

She came around from behind the counter and interrupted the kid’s story.  She quickly determined what was going on and summoned a special handler for him.  While he was chatting with the new handler, I asked if I could go ahead and get checked in myself.

“That was really nice that you helped that child get to the airport.” said the ticket lady.

“Yeah, I’m nice.  I like kids… well not the ones that cry, and poop, or have boogers all over them or eat dirt or try to touch me.”

“Well it was still nice of you to help little Alex get here safely.”

She took my suitcase and tossed it on the belt.  I figured it’d have a nice trip to Guam.  I looked around the desk area to see if the kid was still around.  He wasn’t.  I imagined he was already talking some poor United employee’s ear off or trying to debate the use of X-rays with a TSA staffer.

“Have a good flight Alex.  Merry Christmas.”

Speaking of TSA, I needed to run.  Sadly I was without my blocker and had to get in the security line with all of the other slobs at the airport.

I was trying something new on this trip.  I’d received my boarding pass on my cell phone and according to United’s web site, I could pass through security and board the plane just by scanning my phone.  It sounded interesting so I gave it a try.  When it was my turn to get my ticket circled by a TSA person, I handed them my license and showed them my phone (which had a big bar code on the screen).

“Oh, we can’t do phone check in in this line, you have to go over there.”

The TSA drone pointed over at a lone worker with a scanner and no line.  Cool.

She scanned my phone and I was in.  Pretty cool.  Except now I was no longer in a line for the x-ray, pat down, cessation of civil rights.  I asked her which line was I supposed to get in.  She responded by telling me to follow her and then cut me in front of about 45 other people.

People grumbled.

“Hey, take it up with TSA, man.  I just got here.”

I did my usual routine.

Laptop out of case, into tray.  Laptop case onto belt.  Shoes, belt and coat into another tray.  Push forward.  Await harassment.

Once again I was in the “put your hands up so we can take nude pictures of you” line.  At BWI there were two lines.  One line features the new, naked-time machine.  The other one featured an old x-ray machine from the Johnson administration.  It’s good that we give terrorists a choice in their line options.

So I walked into the little plastic booth thing.

“Please place your hands up for just a second please.”

I did.

My pants fell down.

Seriously.

I’d just bought new pants and they were too big and without the belt and with my hands up… well… peak-a-boo.

“Sir…”

“What?”

“Your…”

“Yeah I know.”

I pulled up my pants and walked out of the little room.  The TSA guy was giving the person in front of me a rub down.  When he finished, he asked me a few questions.

“Do you have something in your pockets?”

“Yes.”

“Could you please show them to me?”

I pulled a couple of folded dollar bills from my front pocket and my 1982 pink and black Ocean Pacific wallet from my back pocket.  He looked them over.

“Sir, I’m going to have to send this through the machine.”  He said, referring to my wallet.

“You should read my blog, man.  You’re going to be famous.”

“I’m also going to need to pat down your buttock area where your wallet was.”

“Should I let go of my pants for this, or…?”

“No sir, I’m just going to feel around with the back of my hand.”

“Can she do it instead?”  I pointed at another TSA officer who looked angry.

“Sir, I need your cooperation.”

“No problem, if  patting my heiney stops terrorism, go for it.  I’m a patriot you know.”

*Grope, grope, grope*

“Thank you, sir.”

“No, no, thank YOU!”  I attempted to hand a couple of those dollar bills to the TSA guy.

“Sir?”

“You earned it.”

The two ladied behind me started laughing.

Sadly, playing with Barney Fife had cost me time.

I now had 15 minutes to get to the most distant reaches of the airport (even further than the Southwest terminal/bathroom).

I started running.

I traveled a bit over the holidays.  You know what that means.  Awesome blog material.

In the past, I’ve had some pretty noteworthy encounters with folks on my trips.  From singing “The Look” to a bitter woman in First Class to getting into a window shade fight in Business Class with a lady who didn’t get the “window” part of “window seat”, I’ve had my share of fun on trips.  I just realized I never finished writing the post about the window flight.  I need a ghost writer.  Anyway… this trip was no different.  Conflict abounded for your reading pleasure.  This time, however, conflict started before I even got on the plane.

I was molested by TSA.  Because I had a wallet.

Let me start at the beginning… or at least closer to it.

I was flying on Christmas day.  Ho, ho, ho and everything.  I was flying out of BWI airport and for people not familiar with the Washington DC trio of airports, it’s the crap one.  It’s the crap one, but it’s also about $50 cheaper to fly out of there than Dulles or National (Republicans call it Reagan, everyone with an IQ higher than room temperature calls it National).  I made good time on my drive to the airport.  I was worried that I might hit some traffic along the I95 corridor (aka Hell’s Highway), but there was none to be found.  I arrived at the airport loop about 2.5 hours before my flight’s scheduled departure time, so I was feeling pretty confident.  At least until I saw the parking status sign.  As with most airports, BWI has a wide variety of parking lots that vary in terms of price and distance from the airport.  They also vary as to whether or not a bus comes to pick you up or you have to hitch a ride with the FedEx guy.  (Crap airport)  The airport parking sign looked like this:

Hourly Parking: Full/Closed

Short Term Parking: Full/Closed

Express Parking: Full/Closed

VIP Parking: Full/Closed

Executive Parking: Full/Closed

Daily Parking: Full/Closed

Moderate Parking: Doesn’t Exist/Contradiction in Terms

Long Term Parking A: Full/Closed

Long Term Parking B: Full/Closed

Parking 50 Miles Away in an Unlit Alley: Full/Closed

My Driveway: Full/Closed

I was a bit perplexed.  I’d never been to an airport and not had a place to park before.  Based on the horrified faces of the people circling the loop, I wasn’t the only one.  Between the holidays and the impending arrival of a massive snow storm on the 26th that was expected to cripple the area with two inches of snow, everyone was trying to leave town.  Several of the closed parking lots had people standing around, blocking the entry area.  Some of them worked for the airport.  I asked one of them (it was 50/50 if he was an airport employee or a serial killer… either way he was helpful) what I should do and he recommended parking at the train station and taking a bus back to the airport.

Images of Steve Martin and John Candy started to flash into my head.  I still had two hours before my flight so I headed off to the train station.

Sure enough, I found two parking garages at the AmTrak station.  I also found 4,764 people queued up at the entry trying to get in.  I finally got in and found a space as far away from the elevator and bus stop as possible.  Within the next 10-15 minutes the garage was completely full.  I could also see that there were more than a few bus loads of people wandering around.  I tried to run to the bus stop but that was a failure.  I’d had abdominal surgery a few days prior and while it not being major, lifting a 45lb suitcase out of a trucking and running with said suitcase and carry-ons just wasn’t happening.  In my eagerness to get to the bus stop, I left one of my carry-on bags in the car.  I’m sure I wouldn’t need my work laptop or blackberry for the next 10 days out of the office anyway- yeah, right.

The throngs of people, most with germy, screaming children, headed for a pair of elevators that looked ripe for a murder.  I took the stairs.  I have good luggage so I tied my bags together and bounced them down three flights of stairs.  I also knew that I had a couple Vicodin in my pocket from the hospital, so if I hurt myself, at least I could be comfortable on my flight.  When I got to the ground level I saw a small army of people gathered around a pole that had a “bus” sign attached. 

90 minutes to take off.

I looked around a bit (I was still waiting for one of my bags to roll down the stairs).  Across the street I saw another, different sign.  “Airport Bus Service”.  I looked back at the horde and saw that their bus was a Transit Bus stop… probably a direct route to downtown Baltimore.  It was the holidays so I decided I should tell those poor travelers that they were in the wrong place.  75 minutes until take off.  The bus for the airport rounded the corner heading for the stop.  I looked back at the horde and at the empty bus in the other direction. 

“They’ll learn for themselves.” I thought and ran for the bus.

There was a big sign on the side of the bus and a light up sign in the front that read “BWI AIRPORT SHUTTLE” on it.  The one in front even blinked brightly.  I got on the bus, put my luggage in the rack place and got comfortable.  The driver said hello to me and we sat at the stop for a bit.  I looked at the watch I don’t wear and mumbled something about a flight leaving in 70 minutes.  He then asked me, “Do you think all those people at that stop are really trying to go to the airport and are at the wrong place?”  I looked at my comfortable leg room and pondered a crowded bus.

“Nope.”

The driver was wearing a Santa hat so I knew he was going to check, but I tried to dissuade him.

“They’re all on their way to cross burning in Atlanta.”

He chuckled.

He drove the bus over to the horde and they immediately began crawling over themselves trying to get on board. 

The first man who climbed on was the rounded person I’ve ever seem.  He looked like the Penguin from Batman II. 

“Is this the bus to the airport?”

I made the quizzical look I often make when in the presence of a question that deserves a sarcastic or smarmy answer due to the obviousness or apparentness of the answer.

“Sure is”, said Santa driver.

The round man rolled on board and up stepped a middle aged woman and her middle aged husband and their 2.5 children with all the trimmings.

“Are you going to the airport?”

In my mind, I answered, “Does the blinking light on the front say “airport” or “ask me a dumb question”?”

Santa driver cheerfully replied, “Yep, hop on.”

This continued for 15 minutes.  15 minutes doesn’t seem like a long time unless you’re late for something like a flight or a job interview.  Every single person asked the driver the same question.

“Are you going to the airport?”

I really wondered if people are just not observant or maybe felt like double checking or somehow thought that the destination had changed since the person in front of them asked… three signs including a blinky one… how did they miss it?

The bus was completely packed.  A strange looking kid squeezed in next to me.  He smelled like crap, bacon, and orange soda. 

“Are you going to the airport?”, the kid asked me.  I looked around for his handler.  Surely there was an adult with a broken leash nearby.  I looked at the kid and understood where the orange soda smell was coming from.  He had an orange ring around his mouth that was clearly a stain from drinking it by the gallon.  He also had what looked like the better parts of a BLT dolloped about his shirt and jacket.  I didn’t see where the crap smell came from, but I had a guess.  It spoke again.

“Is this the airport bus?”

“Don’t you have an adult not me to ask these things to?”

“My dad dropped me off at the train station in Richmond and I’m going to see my mom tonight in Dallas.”

He could have just said, “no”.  I didn’t really care. 

Except I did.

As Santa driver finally lost his cool demeanor when the 104th passenger asked if that bus was going to the airport and snapped, “Isn’t that what the sign says lady?”, I suddenly felt sorry for this smelly kid who was spending the bulk of Christmas day traveling alone between parents who lived 1000 miles apart.

“Yeah kid.  This is the bus to the airport.  Do you like flying?”

“This is my first time.  When I get to the place I’m supposed to tell them my name and they’ll tell me where to go and what plane to get on but I’m not supposed to tell them to check on my bags because my dad says the airlines will lose it and never give it back and then my mom won’t buy me a new suitcase because she’ll say it was his fault but that’s ok because I’m not going to have them do that so the bag can sit with me on the floor of the airplane and my dad said they’ll give me a free Coke on the plane and but they used to give kids little wings like a pilot but they don’t anymore because of the airlines having repressions but that’s ok too because I don’t need any wings because when I grow up I’m going to be a Senator and that’s why my dad is putting me on United States airlines.”  He then proudly produced some sort of official looking document that looked like a boarding pass and liability waiver.

“Do you mean United airlines?”

He looked at his documents and studied them for a bit.  He looked up at me and shrugged.  I looked at it and saw it was in fact a ticket voucher of some sort for United and handling instructions for a kid traveling alone. 

“I’m flying United States airlines too, kid.  Just follow me and I’ll get you to the right place.”

The bus finally started to pull away from the stop.  There were still masses of people outside trying to get on and despite the driver saying another bus was 5 minutes away, the people outside were acting like this was the last helicopter out of Siagon.  65 minutes until take off.

“Hey thanks!  I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do in the airport but my dad said to just go to the place and tell them my name and then they’d put on a plane and I’d get my free Coke and not they wings because of repressions and if they have orange instead of Coke I’m going to get that instead because that’s my favorite and I drink it every day for breakfast and for lunch and for dinner and for snack and if it’s the weekend I can have one after dinner when I have ice cream but I can’t have it after 9:00PM because it gives me nightmares and sometimes I have accidents in the bed but not too much anymore because that was when I was a little kid and not anymore since I’m not a little kid.  Do you want a bite of my sandwich?”

Christ.