In The Big Inning...

I went to Los Angeles this past weekend, and it was a doozy of a trip. We flew out of Dulles Airport, which managed to vault itself right to the top of the "Worst Designed Airports" list. Admittedly, it's not that long of a list, but Dulles is firmly entrenched.

The most absurd thing about Dulles is that in order to get from the main terminal to the gates, you have to take this insanely stupid bus. Apparently, originally Dulles was going to be much larger, and so the figured that a bus method was scalable. But Dulles really never got that large, and so now there's just a gigantic gap between the main terminal and all of the gates. So, they were stuck with the bus system, which is woefully inadequate. Did I mention that the busses actually travel across the runways? And now, they've added a silly little automated voice telling you that this is a great opportunity for you to see some of the day-to-day operations of the airport as you drive by a burly dude throwing luggage on a conveyor belt. Wow!

The busses are also prone to making abrupt turns and sharp stops, as they avoid aircraft and luggage transportation vehicles and the like. And since they're usually crammed full (especially when you're arriving at Dulles, since all of the passengers from the plane go right to the busses), and there aren't that many seats, people are falling all over each other with their luggage, and it's just, well, delightful. But my favorite part about the busses, the one that makes me chuckle (because the other option would be to go on a homicidal rampage in search of the designed of this infernal system) every single time, is that they have steering wheels at both the front and the back. That's right, they're essentially symmetric. I'm not sure if they can go in "reverse", because they never do. What happens is that everyone loads on the bus from the back (as defined by the side opposite of the direction the bus will be traveling), and THEN the driver gets on. What does this mean? That on a crowded bus, before it can do, the driver has to squeeze through everyone and all of their luggage to get to the driver's seat. It's freakin' hilarious, especially when you're exhausted and irritable from traveling.

You know what else is hilarious? Security at airports. I understand the need for it, but it could not be more arbitrary. At some airports, I'm allowed to wear my sneakers through security. You know, the ones with absolutely no metal in them? (And before you mention the infamous shoe bomber, let me remind you that they just scan the shoes, they don't swab them for chemicals or anything.) At some airports, I must remove my shoes and put them on the conveyor belt, or else I'll be strip searched. I can't quite determine what causes certain rules to be applied where. It's hard for me not to get frustrated with the workers, but I try to remember that they're doing us all a service (or, at least they mean to - it's not their fault if the policies are stupid), and they're probably sick of dealing with irate, impatient passengers.

Unfortunately, with security, the chain is only as strong as its weakest link. So if there's one place along the way that slacks, then the whole system is for naught. That's why the inconsistencies make little sense. But the worst I've ever seen occurred when we were boarding in LA. About half of the passengers had already boarded when Sam and I got to the ticket taker lady. Just then, an ear-piercingly loud alarm bell at the entrance to the jetway went off, for no apparent reason. It didn't stop. There was only one person handling boarding, doing everything herself: Taking tickets, making announcements, handling adjustments, etc. So, when the alarm went off and wouldn't cease destroying our eardrums, she had to go turn it off. (It never really crossed any of our minds that the alarm might actually indicate that anything was wrong other than with the alarm itself.) She abandoned her ticket-taking post, and scurried off down the jetway, leaving approximately 100 passengers waiting to board, with nothing stopping us, or any random evil-doer, from boarding the plane. I suppose we had all been through security, but still - it was weird. At the very least, we didn't really need to buy a ticket to get on. She was gone for about two or three minutes, during which time Sam and I dutifully stood at the front of the line, even though our tickets had already been taken, figuring that we should set a good example. The lady returned, and we boarded. I wonder what Tom Ridge would have thought. (I guess he probably wouldn't have cared, since he's no longer head of the Dept. of Homeland Security.)

Flying the red-eye sucks. I don't think I'm getting bigger, so planes must be getting smaller. Maybe I'm getting more creaky, too, as I cannot find a position to get comfortable in. I slept for short clips of time, but it certainly wasn't fitful. And our plane was full of morons, too, who refused to sit down so we could take off - but I've already previously expounded on the frustrations of having slow airplane boarder and, er...unboarders.

Also, when did they develop this whole "boarding group" system? Was it always this way? And did people used to follow it? Because it seems that the ticket-takers don't enforce it, and people know this, so they just brazenly flout their specified order. And I wouldn't really care who got on the plane first, if it didn't mean that all of the overhead space wasn't taken up if you wait too long. So what are the options? Cheat and try to get on early? Or, get on the plane late, find my seat, and if the overhead space is taken, just throw it all on the ground? I like that approach. And with any luck, there will be a "chink in the security chain", and I won't get tossed off the plane and locked up in Gitmo.