Fly The Friendly Skies
azt...@163.com
My recent travel experiences might be just what an aging comic needs
to revive his career.
It started with arrival at the airport, where nobody was in
communication with the other. The guy at door tells me I can't check-
in with him because I have the wrong ticket, so he sends me to line 3.
Line 3 tells me that I can't go there because it is for international
passengers only. He tells me that the guy at the curb should have
handled it. I explained that I was not going back to the door, so he
proceeds to show me a phone that will do just as good. That was rather
simple, but of course the woman at the other end asks me why I am
talking to her, and I reply, "Because somebody told me to." She
replied, "You didn't have to do that."
After getting checked in, my 11 year old son and I were singled out by
TSA as possible terrorists and got to do the pat down and wand between
the legs routine in front of God and everybody in Tampa. They tried to
explain to me that we were singled out randomly and I laughed. He then
said, "Well, not that randomly." I laughed harder, and he said, "Okay,
you guys fit the profile." I laughed harder thinking about my son in a
Hawaiian shirt and me in my Thai silk shirt and what menacing
characters we are.
Actually, we do fit the profile and have been singled out for special
treatment for nearly every domestic flight that I can remember taking
in the USA for the past four years. Here are a few of the known
variables: foreign mailing address, tickets bought overseas, tickets
for a domestic flight not associated with an international flight, one-
way and hyper-discounted tickets.
Upon arriving in Atlanta, we were greeted with the reality that one
bag arrived, and one bag did not. It just so happens that the bag that
didn't arrive was my son's that had all the new school clothes that we
had just purchased while visiting family. My bag would not