No, I don't want to.
Because one of them was 13, he was an "unaccompanied minor" and therefore I had to park rather than slow to 5 or 10 miles per hour and shove him out the door before a TSA agent yelled at me for parking by the terminal.
We went inside and stood in line for a while, then we had a ticket agent who seemed to be on some sort of protest slow down. Maybe it was performance art. Thing One can type faster than this guy. He gave them the boarding passes and I said, what about the unaccompanied minor? Me and my big mouth. The Flash goes back to pecking at his keyboard and finally produces my pass to escort them to the gate. I am told I have to wait until he boards before I can leave. We had arrived at about 5:15am. It is now 6:10. The flight boards at 7:00.
The line for security was ponderously slow until someone decided to open another scanner. The person who decided to open it was a caricature of "angry, sassy black lady". She literally said, "Don't you be bringing any water bottles in my line!" Then turned to a sheepish coworker and said, "Unh-uh, I don't do that."
Luckily my pants didn't fall down when I had to take my belt off.
I ate a $9.00 bagel in the food court before taking the boys on to the gate. At the gate, I was told that my ward would be the last to board. Awesome. I still had to drive back to Connecticut on three hours sleep. I really wanted to spend as much time at that gate as possible, to increase the exciting possibility of my falling asleep at the wheel and orphaning my children.
When the young lad - who was polite but clueless through the whole thing - finally boarded, a very snippy gate attendant told me I had to wait until the plane pushed away from the gate. Why? I asked perhaps a bit too stridently. (I am not a nice person when tired and hungry, although it is arguable I am a not nice person in any conditions.) "In case the plane has mechanical issues, what would happen then?" She snapped back.
How about, "That's your problem. If you can't keep your planes from having mechanical problems, then you need to find someone to sit with this young man. The airport seems to be swarming with TSA people, get one of them on it."
Instead, I sat there and waited, waited for the plane to push back.
Driving back, I nearly missed an exit because I was a little muddle headed.
This is all a long winded way of saying how much I hate air travel. Not because I'm afraid of flying, but because it is such a soul crushing experience. To call airplanes busses with wings is unfair to busses. You don't have to partially disrobe, get body scanned and have your junk fondled to ride the bus. You buy a ticket, nod to the bus driver, say a prayer that he's not downing cough syrup and diet pills and ride the bus.
Every step of air travel is designed to make you uncomfortable. Airlines don't give a damn about customer service, because they don't have to. They all suck! The TSA "security theater" is a farce designed to make policy makers feel secure about preventing the last attack rather than making flying any safer. And the planes themselves are nasty, claustrophobic things.
I've briefly considered paddling to Ireland later this month rather than fly.
I complained to the head of Summer School, a fine guy, and he bumped my pay a bit. To which his assistant, among the nicer people I know, smiled at me and said, Quit Whining.
Which brings me to this. To put it all in perspective.
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