Jeneration X: One Reluctant Adult's Attempt to Unarrest Her Arrested Development; Or, Why It's Never Too Late for Her Dumb Ass to Learn Why Froot Loops Are Not for Dinner (26 page)

I find the lighter I pack, the quicker I move. I recently topped
my previous personal best at Washington Reagan Airport by getting from the curb through security at O’Hare in less than two minutes. Two minutes! No exaggeration! That’s because on the way, I always put all my jewelry in the zippy part of my purse, and when I step out of the car, I’ve already got my boarding pass, license, Kindle, iPad, and quart bag in my hands, ready to be thrust in a bin the second I get to the conveyor belt.

Over the years I’ve flown enough to earn medallion status, which means that sometimes I get to go through the priority line. I love the priority line. I live for the priority line. The priority line is
bank
. I will do unspeakable things to access the priority line.

If you have any say in the matter, you want the priority line because it’s filled with road warriors, the folks who fly every Monday morning and Thursday evening, every week, every year, until they get divorced or promoted. They’ve done this a million times and it’s a point of personal pride to cruise through security quickly. This line is for pilots and flight attendants, too, and you know they’re on top of it. Once in a while, you’ll see a bona fide jet-setter in this line. [
They’re always carrying Louis Vuitton luggage. Always.
] They want to get in and out as fast as they can, due to the extreme mortification of being spotted flying commercially.

The priority line is for pros.

No one travels in their pajama bottoms in the priority line.

No one brings the pillow from their bed in the priority line.

No one requires an explanation that “no metal” includes coins in the priority line. No one tries to plow through anyway, despite carrying enough quarters to feed an entire city block’s worth of meters for a week.

No one has to get the full-on-plastic-gloved-how’s-your-father
after failing the metal detector because they had the good sense to remove their n-i-p-p-l-e ring before they got to the airport in the priority line.

More likely, they never got it pierced in the first place.

The priority line fills me with the smug sense of self-satisfaction that is almost wholly lacking in other areas of my life, due to my inability to manage many of the basic aspects of living.

Sometimes when I’m in the priority line, I like to predict who’s going to be trouble in the regular line. You, who I just witnessed buying the enormous water bottle? Try not to look surprised when security removes it from your bag. And you, I’m wagering in thirty seconds you’re going to be bitching about you had no idea you couldn’t bring a half gallon of shampoo, likely because you haven’t watched the news in ten years. [
I also predict you cut your hair yourself. Often, these qualities are soup and sandwich.
] And you, with the purse, the backpack, the suitcase, and the shopping tote—the “limit two carry-on items” business is not simply a suggestion.

One time I watched an otherwise normal-looking woman holding a bunch of bananas in the security line, which… what the
fuck
? Where was she going that bananas don’t exist? Sure, I could see wanting to have a banana on the plane as a snack, because they’re fairly tidy and there’s no annoying crunch factor and they’re self-contained. Plus, personally, I have a pathological need to never throw bananas away. [
My freezer is a testament to this. Oh, and if anyone needs one hundred thirty-seven overripe bananas to make bread? Call me!
] But six bananas? For a lady traveling alone? I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing when the TSA guy explained that unless her bananas were in a bag, they counted as a carry-on piece. And then I watched as she ran the
bananas through the conveyor belt and then how all the TSA guards gathered around the screen pointing and asking in incredulous tones, “Are those
bananas
?”

I posit that travel can make the very best of us a little stupid; for those who blithely stroll through the metal detector with a dinner-plate-sized belt buckle, maybe they’re just having an off day. What I don’t get is why airline travel causes people to forget very basic manners, but it does and they do. When I had to catch a connecting flight in Memphis recently, I was overwhelmed by the heady smell of all the rib joints in the terminal. To me, airport food is a necessary evil. I try to stick with reliable standbys like McDonald’s or plain turkey sandwiches or bags of almonds due to my penchant for avoiding airline bathrooms. [
How do people join the Mile High Club in there when I have to open the door to bend over and pick up a paper towel?
] But one whiff of Memphis barbecue and I was ready to throw my rigid travel rules out the window. Unfortunately, I had only five minutes to get to my gate and what was I going to do, suck on a pork bone while jammed between everyone else flying coach?

Apparently I was one of the few who didn’t make this choice. I watched in horror as passenger after passenger boarded with stacks of short ribs and sampler plates and burnt ends. Although not seated directly next to anyone tonguing up a mess of ribs, I was fortunate enough to have a visual on a man one seat up and over cleaning every scrap off of his order, before neatly storing the naked bones in the seat-back pocket in front of him.

Previously I thought I couldn’t hate anything more than flying out of the United terminal in O’Hare where passengers load up on
Nuts on Clark’s cheddar and caramel popcorn. I’ve spent many an unpleasant flight next to egregious finger-lickers, but in terms of lip smacking, nothing compares to being seated near someone enjoying the Neelys’ slow-fired finest.

And yet if I were to express exactly how much they were annoying me,
I’d
end up on the terror watch list.

So not fair.

I believe my purpose in life is to be the World’s Manners Monitor and I hate when my efforts are thwarted.

The travel portion of my book tour this year concluded in Seattle. Can I tell you something about Seattle? Everyone there is a filthy liar. They’re all, “Don’t move to Seattle—it’s so rainy!” And yet every time I’ve been there, a tiny amount of rain falls before the whole sky explodes into rainbows and sunlight. Seattleites mean to hog up all the stunning vistas and good coffee and flowering bushes for themselves. Bet on it.

Anyway, I finished doing Seattle media very early in the morning so I had the day to shop and explore. My friend Joanna traveled to New York with me to work as my “assistant” for the day and I wanted to buy her a present. On the way to Pike’s Market, I found a Finnish store full of Marimekko goods and I got her some stuff I knew she’d love.

My policy is to never buy more than I’m going to dispose while on the road, but it was my last city and I figured the world wouldn’t end if I checked my bag. So I stocked up with confidence before inhaling my own weight in crepes and espresso.

I spent the rest of the day on the hotel’s deck watching tugboats dock enormous container ships, while listening to some blowhard yammer into his phone about how he bought one thousand copies
of his boss’s book in order to keep him on
The
New York Times
best-seller list, which, OMG! I’ve yet to figure out who he was talking about but when I do… BUDDY, I’M ON TO YOU.

Point is every part of my Seattle visit was amazing, from the media to the weather to the food to the event at Third Place Books to the shopping.

Naturally, shit was going to fall apart on the way home.

That’s just how it goes.

Part of the reason that I’m an excellent flyer is that I’m an early arriver. When the airlines tell me to arrive at least two hours before my scheduled departure, I do. Once in a while, this allows me to catch an earlier flight. A lot of times this means I spend a couple of hours camped out at the gate if there’s no Admiral’s Club. Give me bored and early over stressed and late anytime.

A few years ago I watched my friend Poppy slip a skycap a twenty dollar tip and he slapped a Priority tag on her luggage so fast it was almost as if it had always been there. When it comes to travel, I learn quick and whenever I’m forced to check a bag, I follow her example and I’ve never not gotten the magical tag. Said tag not only insures that the bag will be the first unloaded, but also that at no point will my luggage be used as a football.

When I get to the airport, my driver pulls up right behind a bus. “Oh, no,” he said.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“Cruisers.”

“Police cars?”

“No,” he sighed. “Cruise people. One of the ships must have docked this morning and now you’re going to be behind all these morons. From the looks of them, it was an Alaskan cruise. Good
luck, ma’am. You’ll need it.” Then he handed me my bag and drove off, rather quickly now that I remember it.

But the line for the skycap was only a few people deep so I figured it couldn’t be so bad, plus the kiosks were mobbed inside, with the line of passengers snaking down the length of the terminal and back up around.

As I waited behind two couples, a harried-looking chauffeur kept making trips back and forth from a big passenger van. Although the number of customers in front of me didn’t get any larger, the amount of baggage they were checking grew exponentially until there were five massive pieces of luggage for every hunched old person.

When I say massive, I mean it. I’ve never seen such enormous suitcases. An adult could have easily zipped him- or herself inside and still had more room than your typical airplane bathroom. Seriously, I’m talking massive towers of bags the same size (and floral fabric) of those overstuffed couches that were all the rage in the eighties. Although I wouldn’t say I’m a clotheshorse, I have a decent-sized wardrobe, yet I assure you everything in my closet would fit in three of these bags.

I didn’t get the full measure of exactly how heavy the bags were until the older woman in front of me knocked one of them onto my foot and spilt my toenail in half. I haven’t felt pain like this since a horse stepped on me in college. As I howled, clutching my shoe and hopping around one-legged in pain, the woman merely turned around, looked me up and down, shrugged, and then turned back around without picking up her fallen bag.

Wait.

What?

Oh, bitch… it is
on
.

For the first fifteen minutes in line, I was too focused on my throbbing digits and roiling rage to notice that the line seemed to have stalled. But fifteen minutes after that, I began to wonder if there wasn’t a problem, as neither of the two couples in front of me had moved. As I looked up and down the white unloading zone, I saw that every other skycap was surrounded by tiny old people and mass amounts of baggage.

And this? Right here? Is why I’m never moving to Florida.

The beleaguered skycap was whizzing around, at least in spirit. He was banging on his computer keys and printing out long, sticky bag claims before wadding them up and trying again. I couldn’t figure out the problem, but he seemed enormously distressed and it wasn’t until he staggered out from behind the counter that I noticed he had a terrible limp, too.

Fucking cruisers.

Eventually the first old couple finished their business. I noticed that they were responsible for only four pieces from Mount Samsonite, so that meant the couple ahead of the rest of us in the line was in charge of the remaining sixteen. While we waited, a few random old folks shoved their way in front of me to talk to the Toenail Assassin, and then they’d meander away again, so she must have been responsible for checking everyone’s bag in addition to ruining my pedicure.

None of us in line could move up, though, because the lady refused to scoot any of her bags closer to the desk. At one point she said to me, “Why don’t
you
move those?” and I pointed to my savaged piggy toe saying, “I can’t. I’m crippled.” So she left them.

Forty-five minutes into the wait, the rest of us in line got to know each other, forming the kind of bonds forged during war or
hostage situations or freshman year of college. I had a deeply meaningful chat with Bernie, who was headed out to DeKalb to spend some time with his fiancée’s family. Yeah, it took him a while to come around to realizing that he wanted to get married, but hey, how often is he going to meet a cool gal like Casey? So he took a leap of faith and it totally paid off and I hoped to dance at their wedding. If I could ever walk again, that is.

After quite some time, Bernie decided he’d take another leap and try the terminal inside because clearly this line was never moving. He promised to come back for us if it was any better inside, but we knew he never would. At some point, self-preservation kicks in. We all sorely felt the loss of Bernie; he was kind of like our mascot.

At this point, the woman in front of me knocked her suitcase over again, but I was able to hop out of the way. When she wasn’t looking, I gave it a solid kick with my good foot.

The Lopezes were very excited to see their grandson for the first time and maybe going to the top of the Sears Tower if they had the chance, and please, God, let their kids have gotten a new sofa bed so it didn’t mess up Jose’s back again. That thing was going to be the death of them!

Bill and Brian were ecstatic about their wicked pissah meeting at Microsoft, although they were dreading the long flight back to Boston in coach. Maybe if they landed the deal, their boss would let them do business class next time. Bloody Marys were on them if our crew ever made it inside to the bar.

And then there was Bubbe Bernbaum, who announced she was not about to spend the few years she had left in this fakakta line and what the hell was wrong with the meshugenah with all the fakakta luggage? Then she rammed some of the offending pieces of luggage with her wheelchair. Bubbe Bernbaum raised such a
stink that eventually another skycap came out to assist, fifty-four minutes after I arrived.

Bubbe Bernbaum is the only reason that I’m not currently standing in that line today.

The kicker is that after taking up an entire hour of the skycap’s time and, most likely maiming his foot, too, the woman gave him a five dollar tip. Five dollars! At that point, airport security be damned, I couldn’t take it anymore. I shouted after her, “Hey, lady! I’ve got your five dollars right here! Bend over!”