TSA-A OK!

Excerpt from airport diaries 7/14/2011

Dear Diary,

Another fun filled day spent at the airport. For the record I’m no longer at camp, but the “dear diary” just feels right ,so I’m going with it. My fun filled travel day began around noon today. It’s 8:00 p.m now, so why am I still in Chicago you might ask. Well, let me explain. Around noon today I begin walking to the train, with Chris’s suitcase, my suitcase, a computer bag and my purse in tow. Luckily, I wasn’t wearing a chef’s coat. At which point I thought, “God am I glad I don’t have to be a traveling culinary gypsy anymore.” But that’s beside the point. What is the point is that I had to drop Harlow off at his doggy daycare at 10:00 a.m. today. A daycare that I might add we were initially very pleased to get him into. It took a vigorous interview session and few socialization trial classes but eventually we got the go ahead that he was accepted into this elite school that was conveniently very close to our home. But today when I dropped him off something just didn’t feel right. I got the Happy Gilmore feeling. Like maybe everything seemed just a little too good to be true at Dogs Day Inn. Was Harlow really playing in the yard with his friends all day long or was he actually sewing dog beds for profit? I don’t know. When I left he put his paws on the door and looked at me like. “oh please, don’t leave me here.” But, I had no choice. And I’m still being nagged by this image.

So I got on my train and met Chris downtown. We took the train to Midway and thought everything was going smoothly, that is until we got to the airport. “Flight Cancelled,” the screen boasted. Come again? Call me naïve, but I didn’t realize airlines still did this to normal people. Were Chris and I on some reality TV romantic comedy show where it only made sense our flight was cancelled and we were re routed to spend a night in downtown Chicago running from comical thieves who were trying to kidnap us as we jumped from one abandoned house to the other? Because in that case it would make total sense. Otherwise why in the hell is it okay for an airline to tell you just two hours before your flight that it’s been cancelled? Turns out it’s okay because of weather… Apparently Denver got some crazy hailstorm last night that damaged a bunch of Frontier planes. Blah, blah, blah. Put the plane in the garage at night, everybody knows that.

Well our flight was cancelled. Plan A: hitch a ride with John Candy and his energetic polka band to our final destination or plan B: drive thirty miles to O’Hare Airport and catch a flight on another airline five hours later. Much to my dismay, we went with plan B. We got to O’Hare around 3:30, our new flight was scheduled for 8:05. Too much time in an airport can be a dangerous thing. Luckily, you can always can’t on the good ol TSA to waste a large majority of your time at the airport. Since I’m a little tipsy, and a lottta bit sassy, I’m gonna go off on the TSA for just a moment. I hate them because they are all a bunch of uneducated white trash (but only in a general term, any race can actually apply) group of people who take a great deal of pleasure in the small amount of power they get to hold for once in their life over powerful people (like myself.) Something about me must scream“Body Scan Me!” “Make me take off my jacket even if it’s not actually a real jacket but just a part of my overall ensemble!” “Inspect my watch, it might contain a very tiny bomb!” “Be a bitch to me, I enjoy conversating with airline people.” Ext and so forth. So Chris watches from the side as I get Natalie Hollawayed from head to toe (too soon? I didn’t think so either, it’s been like five years.)

But the best part about making it through security is that you’re one step closer to a bar. And an airport bar at that. I think I could be served a chilled glass of urine at an airport bar and I would still enjoy myself. Something about a drink in the airport just says, “Hey, relax. You’re through security.” And I didn’t realize how very terroristic that sounded until I read it again. But for a high-strung, non-affectionate person, security can be a very stressful thing. I’m usually ready to become a cutter by the time I get through the five different lines of people all anxious to be somewhere other than where they are. I really think the airport brings out the worst in people. I’ve seen too many moms with children in tow, ready to decapitate an airline employee at a moments notice. But I digress.

So Chris and I spent the next four hours drinking at the bar waiting for our flight. And not surprising at all, time flew. That’s the funny thing about drinking, time never feels wasted or slow when there’s a drink in hand. And ironically enough, that’s exactly how you feel after a few. Before we knew it, our flight was boarding. And so here we are, in the air on our way to Colorado Springs to enjoy the glorious event that is a wedding.

Yours truly,

S Fritz

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