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Nothing Says "Happy Holidays" Like an Old Fashioned Airport Camping Trip

This morning I hauled myself out of bed at 4:30, hiked to the Downtown Berkeley BART station, rode to the Coliseum, stood in the rain for twenty minutes, fumbled for three dollars on AirBart, arrived at Oakland International, and then jogged to the ticket counter . . . to learn that my flight was delayed for "the foreseeable future."

(Did I check the little "call me with updates on my flight" box when I bought my ticket? Yes. Did they call me with updates? No. But did they call to offer me a "bargain" on rental cars? Oh, hell yes -- about five minutes ago. WTF?)

I understand that delays happen.  I'm headed to North Idaho, which was socked this week with two feet of snow, and where temperatures have been hovering around zero degrees. I'd be moving slowly, too. I get it. But I don't have to like it, and the whole airport experience seems to add insult to my injury.  I sometimes wonder if the "airport" really some evil deity's pet invention, specially engineered just to piss me off. It wouldn't be the first time that has happened.

The bottom line is that some days (like today) you wake up in the morning and get hit with a big pile of crap. And some days (like today) you realize: the only thing I can do with this is spread it around.  This post is about today, which is one of those days.  Apologies, all, but I am about to have a little pity-party-rant for myself and for any other sentient creatures here at gate C-6:

• The waiting areas. Each seat has an immovable armrest. Am I the only one who thinks this is ridiculous? Immovable armrests are anti-homelessness devices. Is there some sort of homelessness problem in Concourse C?
  
• Airport coffee. It sucks.  Period.  (There is a blanket exception for PDX, in Portland, Oregon. Why can't I be stranded there?)
  
• The horn-tooting, bull-hollering airport personnel who haul the morbidly obese on specially designed electric powered flatbeds -- all while yelling at ME to get out of the way! "Wonk, wonk, coming trough, people. Move to the right, people, move right." Look, if anybody should be allowed to yell at anybody for not moving enough . . . ?  The way I see it, we're either going to be polite, or we're not.  That means that if if the sloth cart drivers can holler their personal thoughts at me, I should be able to share my own observations in return. Right? What's so wrong about that?
  
• Security. Oh, god, don't get me started on security. Can you carry a bottle of water through a security checkpoint? No. Can you carry 24 ounces of saline solution through the same checkpoint? Yes. "Why?" you may ask. Well, apparently there is an exception for "medical supplies." I would like to know, however, exactly how does that works out in real life. Is it that medical supplies are excepted, or that or stuff labeled medical supplies gets excepted? I would really like to know, because a 24 ounce "bottle of saline" can hold a lot of shampoo. Or C-4. Or vodka.
• Christmas music. I'm not a Grinch, but I swear to God if I hear Silent Night one more time before 8:00 a.m., something might rupture in my brain. Further, the fact that the music here seems to have been cleansed of any culturally sensitive references to God is somehow even more insulting. It's like they had the political correctness to note the possibility of Islamic and atheistic travelers, but without the intelligence or grace to realize that some people might prefer not to have the tune piped down their throats, either.
  
• Special security announcements: "This is a special security announcement: please maintain control of your personal belongings at all time. Unattended baggage is subject to search, inspection, damage, and removal. Do not accept items or packages from unknown individuals. Unattended vehicles will be ticketed and towed." Okay, first of all, this message has been playing in airports every 80 seconds for at least the last seven years. So, there is nothing "special" about it. Second, what's with "ticketed and towed"??? Is that really the TSA's car bomb strategy? Seriously? If writing tickets is all it takes to deter terrorists, then why not just skip the announcements, the cameras, the 7 billion dollar budget, and just start ticketing terrorism?
  

I freely confess the real problem here: I'm just cranky because I went to bed late, got up early, and am confined to furniture that forecloses any possibly of rest for "the foreseeable future."  I admit that.  This is a weak moment.  Just because I'm cranky, though, doesn't mean I'm necessarily wrong. How could this place NOT drive a person mad?  Airports embody everything that is wrong with the American approach to problem solving. It is a huge, ponderous machine that works -- I'll grant that it works -- but it never works quite right. It's American, I guess.  Like a Chevy Tahoe, the Democratic party, or a SAM.

Full post as published by Nuts & Boalts on December 19, 2008 (boomark / email).