Traveling. Adventures in new places Reminiscing with family and friends in their homes and old stomping grounds. Coming home and relishing in comfort. I love everything about travel, except one crucial part of getting to and from; flying.
I don’t have a fear of flying or any concerns over the technical/structural soundness of the plane or the expertise of the pilot or crew. I just hate everything else about flying.
I’m not big on crowds. I don’t really like strangers, strangers in close proximity, or strangers in close proximity in large numbers. This is in everything that flying entails. On the train to and from gates, even when not packed like sardines, you have to stand uncomfortably close to be able to hold on to the posts. There are all kinds of lines – check in, security, pre-boarding, on the bridge, and especially on the plane waiting to get to the seat- where people seem to think that standing within the personal space of the guest in front of them will get them to whatever they’re waiting for that much sooner.
Speaking of lines, I truly despise security lines. Not the waiting, not the line itself, but the security part. I don’t like being separated from my stuff. I always think that at the other end, someone will have grabbed my Kindle or something personal but inexpensive like an article of clothing. I also don’t like how poorly timed it all is. This is not on TSA, or any of the employees on-the-ground at security. The issue is that one person gets through the ID/boarding pass check, grabs 4 bins because they’ve got a carry on, phone, laptop, kindle, snacks, empty water bottle, shoes, and jacket – all need to be in bins. The counter space allows for maybe 10 bins, so when three more people come through with roughly the same number of bins needed, the third person has to wait. So on and so forth causing back up. Again, the waiting is not the problem, discomfort sets in when the person behind me makes me feel like I’m not moving fast enough. They’re watching me, judging me, and trying to put their bins in my bins’ spot and it’s too much. And it’s the same issue on the other side, no matter how quickly I try to put everything back together, I feel like I’m not moving fast enough and am certainly not helping the backup that I didn’t even cause.
As for bags, I almost never check my bags. I have friends who had their bags lost and had to buy clothes, borrow clothes, or ‘make-do’ for their trip, or worse, something of value was in the bag. Financially, if it never turns up, you may be reimbursed. If, however, it’s of sentimental value, it’s gone.
Another serious issue for me, that while it doesn’t only apply to airports, causes more issues in airports and on planes than in any other situation. Anyone above the age of fifty seems to think that I’m a teenager, or at least an idiot college freshman (please note, I don’t think college freshmen are idiots, the fifty year olds’ do). I’m five feet tall, and I think my characteristics will be “cute” for the rest of my life. I am often talked down to, scoffed at before I even have a chance to do something clumsy, and treated unfairly overall, and almost on the whole by passengers.
I also hate the sizes of the chairs. I can fit more than comfortably in the chairs, even the smallest chair planes I’ve been in were fine. The issue is not me, it’s other people. It’s not their fault, they’re normal sized, maybe a little big but hey, that’s their body. Sometimes they’re already flowing into my seat before the flight even takes off. Other times they’ve sat strategically so that they don’t expand into my space, then they fall asleep and all their efforts fall to the wayside.
I have a few, very true, stories of prime examples of significant airport issues I’ve experienced.
One of my earliest inconveniences was in Florida, where I grew up and, even with all of my traveling, where I still have probably done most of my traveling either to or from. Florida is a very popular cruise destination/origination. Something also more common than it should be is for someone to choose to end their life by jumping ship. When this happens, the whole cruise ships pours in to the airport. Normally, a cruise ship is disembarked, some stay an extra day or two, others tour the port city, and flights are booked well ahead. When something like this happens no one is in the mood to extend their vacation, everyone just wants to get home, and everyone moves up their flights and was likely given a voucher to do so.
There’s a point to all this.
I was catching a flight with my mom, she had TSA pre-check, I did not. She went through her line and I went to get in mine, and I was stopped by a TSA agent. The agent pointed over my shoulder to a ridiculously large crowd of people standing around. Apparently, you couldn’t even get in the security line until your boarding time was called.
I found out from someone in the crowd I now assimilated to that someone had jumped off a cruise ship.
Denver International Airport, the airport of my home, is huge. I’m not so great at navigating airports, and I’ve accepted that. I also know that I’m even worse with direction and sense of place when I am stressed; and I’ve already made clear that airports make me less than calm, cool, and collected. One trip, that I was making on my own, my boyfriend didn’t understand why I wanted to get there so early. Multiple delays later, I was at the airport with little over and hour to find security and go through the motions of airport travel. I was frantic. I took way too long to find security, panicked while I waited in line, got though without an issue, and was rushing when I made it to the other side. And I got on the wrong train. I got on the train that took you back to the terminal, and I had to go through security again. This time around, for reasons I still can’t understand, my bag was held. Not only was my bag held, so was a woman’s from another country who didn’t speak a complete English vocabulary (Dutch, Swiss, something?). She had baby formula and they had to check each one. What felt like forever later, she was cleared. Then they checked my bag, and even the TSA agent seemed not to fully understand why my bag was held. I was let through, caught the train, and made it to my gate fifteen minutes before they began boarding.
On my way home from a trip to California, I flew back a few days prior to my boyfriend, I had brought back two bottles of wine so I checked my bag. I got off the plane, went to baggage claim, and waited with anticipation for my hot pink bag to come down. When one black bag continued to circle the conveyor and no more bags were coming down the shoot, I became concerned. This was it. My bag was gone forever. My clothes, the wine- well, at least I had put my jewelry in my backpack. I went to customer service and was told my bag was held in a special baggage claim space. I was helped by a super nice woman regarding my “electric hot pink bag made our of poncho-ish, tarp-like material – but please be careful because there’s wine bottles in it-” she gave me an ‘ah-ha’ look as she held one finger up and nodded her head at the young man behind her and he moved to the back. He returned within minutes with my bag. I thanked them both profusely and left to catch a train to my car.
On a trip to visit my parents three weeks ago in Minnesota, I got on the plane without much fuss throughout the whole process. five minutes after I was sat and settled, we were told to get off the plane because they had hit some wildlife on the way in and the plane needed to be inspected. The plane had been sitting on/near the runway for some time before we boarded, why they let us board in the first place is beyond me, but because they said to and with a nod to the safety of myself, the other passengers, and the crew, I obliged. Ten minutes later we were directed to another gate for a different plane. I ran to the other gate, and all’s well that ends well.
My flight the next weekend, to Montana for Thanksgiving with my boyfriend, we had the weirdest experience. We got in the security line and when we got to the front, each line had three stations. You’d take put your stuff in the bin in front of you, place it on the conveyor, and a new bin would pop up. (I found out on my flight to FL the next weekend that this is the new norm for the North security gate.) What this means, though, is that when you are done with one bin, the other people/stations are likely done with one bin, too. I tried holding my bins at my station and they wouldn’t let me. I had one bin of my stuff, followed by two that didn’t belong to me, another one of mine, three that I had nothing to do with, and so on ’til my four bins went up. Thankfully, one of each of the ‘not mine’ bins per pattern belonged to my boyfriend, but still. Not only was I being separated from my stuff, my stuff was being separated from itself. We make it through security, which on the other end is hayday of people boomeranging to get their separated bins, and head to our gates. We get on the plane, take off, and they dim the lights. It’s a short enough flight that I know a nap will do more harm than good for myself so I turn my light on; and it’s dead. My boyfriend has an eye mask so I go to use his light and it’s way to bright. The glazed filter that normally makes the light less disruptive to other passengers is gone; as in I can touch the actual light bulb which is, by the way, surrounded by a reflective material. I don’t want to be ‘that passenger’ so I went through the flight without a light.
I’ve never had anything significantly terrible happen while flying – *knock on wood*. I am constantly holding my breath for the day teleportation is realized or trains are as fast (and safe) as flying.
As for my delay in my post, I am so sorry. I have been going in early or staying late at work most days to make up all my time for traveling. We moved into our new home on Nov 1st (so mostly the weekend of the 3rd). The next weekend (10th), we were in Virginia for my cousin’s wedding. I flew out on the 16th to visit my parents in Minneapolis, then the next weekend we were in – as you read- Montana for Thanksgiving. The next weekend was the first weekend of Dec, which was when I flew to Florida for when two of my best friends from college married each other. This post was outlined two weeks ago, halfway written last week, and completed today. Thank you for your patience and I hope you are enjoying your holiday season- and that your travels are much less trying and demanding than those I’ve reflected on in this post.
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