How bad will business travel suck now?

As reported here last week, I had the distinct honor and privilege of flying from Hartford CT to DFW the day after last-weeks AQ Hullabaloo (oh, that’s catchy) and, I gotta tell you, it sucked every bit as badly as I feared it would.

Bradley “International” (I think they have two puddle-jumpers a day to Ontario, so it’s “International”) Airport has one of the most inefficient and bad-tempered TSA crews in existence under the best of circumstances. They were not at their best at 0500 on Friday when I rolled through there.

Oh, did I say rolled? Let me amend that to crawled. On my belly. Backwards. And upside down. Forget about the dude with the walker passing me. I was jealously eyeing the garden slug on the wall that was lapping me, while pointing it’s antennae at the imaginary scoreboard.

It was really, really bad, man.

Now, I will give my fellow travelers a break. Its not as easy as you might think to get all the liquid and gel out of your carry on bag. I went thru my trusty LowePro laptop bag compartment by compartment on Thursday night and, if it even rattled, it went into my check bag. Emergency contact lens solution? Gone. Emergency tube of toothpaste? Gone. Spray-on screen cleaner? Gone. Pack of Bubble-Yum (strawberry flavor)? Gone. Folding 9” commando knife? What the hell was that doing in there? Gone.

Not everyone went thru their bags with the same gusto before they got to the airport. The surly TSA agents were unhappy to do it for them, but they did it anyway. The number of party-sized bottles of Listerine, Diet Coke, soap, baby oil, cooking oil, body oil, motor oil, and what appeared to be lime jello, but may have been a vat of Nickelodeon Slime, pulled out of travelers’ hand luggage was staggering. What were these people thinking?

A big part of the problem in Hartford is the sheer number of olds who go thru the place. I’m all for respecting my elders, but it’s tough to keep smiling when the wrinkly old bag in front of me, the one with the remaining 75 hairs on her head (argh) dyed a color which will be found in no rainbow (fwap!); with arms that look like a Stretch Armstrong at 1500 degrees Fahrenheit but wearing a clingy, sleeveless tank top, WITH spaghetti straps, anyway (bleaghh!!); with earrings so oversized her earlobes are brushing her shoulders (dear GOD!!!) and the piercings in said earlobes are so stretched I can see the full profile of the guy on the other side of her through them (and probably play catch with a softball if we’re both good shots) (digging my own eyes out with a soggy Popsicle stick now!!!!); yeah, that one, moans to the security dude, “What new restrictions? I haven’t heard about any new restrictions. I demand to speak with your supervisor.”

Kill me now. Blow me up, dawg. Get it over with.

Two and a half hours in line. Time off my life which I will never get back. But, I was desperate to get home. So I rode it out. Yay, me.

So, now I’m looking at heading right back to Hartford/Springfield/Hell next week. I got a week’s stay of execution, but next Mon, I’m back to it. How bad will it suck?

Well, I’ve got to get used to the idea of checking a bag again. I never do this when I’m traveling alone – it all goes in the laptop bag or the roll-aboard. No more. Assuming I want to, you know, shave and brush my teeth while I’m there, I’m going to need to check the roll-aboard. So there’s 20 to 30 minutes tacked onto a trip (10 minutes to check the bag on the front end, 20 minutes to retrieve the bag after arrival, longer if it’s DFW – the world’s slowest baggage claim).

And since I’m checking a bag, I have to prepare myself for some TSA wanker going through my unmentionables. I have had no bad experiences myself, nor have I heard first hand of anyone else having things go missing. However, I get the really, really unpleasant mental image of 300 lb, bald, lispy, flatfooted, mama’s boy with thick glasses and poor dental hygiene poking through my South Park boxers with an unnatural grin on his face. Gives me the willies just thinking about it. It makes me want to strap my open suitcase to the roof of the rental car and make a few passes through the Exxon car wash, you know?

Lines at security? Who the hell knows? One would hope that Auntie Volcano-hair (see above for details) will get the word and pack accordingly. However, we all know Cousin Elmer Wayne isn’t going to watch the news or look online (“Inter Net? Is this a fishing question?”). He’ll probably show up with four quarts of fuel for his Zippo and that old Intermatic lamp timer he’s been trying to fix for the last four years, both in his carry-on. And I’ll have to wait while they violate a few of his civil rights.

And how is this going to affect the low-cost airlines? Their whole bit is turnaround time and minimal checked baggage. These new restrictions appear to hit them right in the business model. Low cost airlines don’t mean much to us in the DFW market – Southwest isn’t allowed to fly anywhere, and American has the rest of the market so monopolized that $1,400 airfares don’t even make us blink hard. But in those areas where they’re big (like, everywhere else on earth), this is big, and not good, news.

Oh, God, have I prattled on. Anyone still with me? Zeus the Waffleball pickled Ambrosia’s refrigerator kite. Just wanted to see if you were paying attention. No? Me either.

So, long story long, we’ll see, won’t we? I will be back out there next week, braving the perils of the sky. You can count on me for up-to-the-minute, obtuse observations about the accompanying miseries.

Onward!