now they're just fucking with us
I’m writing this at approximately 27,000 feet over Nebraska, or possibly Iowa. The view over the port wing is a monotonous light grey – some kind of stratiform cloud. I forget my classifications.
Today is my first venture into the air since the fateful events of August 10, when God and the TSA decreed that the new commandment for safe flight was thou shalt not bring liquids, yea, neither shalt thou bring gels, nor even mascara.
I have a little ritual at the Salt Lake City airport: I usually get there about an hour and a half early for my lunchtimeish flight to Chicago, go up to the restaurant on the third floor past security, and have a meal of a mediocre cheeseburger and a Samuel Adams beer. My waiter is always a guy named Shan. We have a pretty good rapport, and he asks me how my kitchen renovations are coming along.
Ever since I began this ritual about a couple of years ago, the flatware that comes with my meal has included a plastic knife, as a nod to the successful box-cutter method of hijacking employed on the airliners involved in the September 11th attacks. Never mind that a there’s several orders of magnitude between the feasible deadliness of a factory-honed razorblade and a food-service butter knife; it was, I accepted, a kind of minor penitence, along the lines of giving up chocolate for lent or being told to say Hail Marys as absolution for hating your Mother-in-law. If it made people feel better about flying, then I’d shrug my shoulders and eat with a goddamn plastic knife.
Today, I sat down at my usual table and ordered my usual meal. Shan brought me my beer, flatware, and burger. This is what I received:
When I’d finished my meal, packed up my carry-on, and was being checked through with the rest of Group 3, the TSA guard by the jetway duly rummaged through my backpack in search of contraband Evian. I’d heard they were doing this, but I had to see it myself to truly believe it was happening.
So, what the fallout of August 10 amounts to is this: It is no longer considered likely that anyone will try to hijack an aircraft by sawing through the pilot’s jugular with a butter knife swiped from the airport restaurant, but they do consider the possibility that someone might attempt to drown the flight crew with the contents of a 16-ounce bottle of lemon-flavored Dasani to be a clear and present danger.
Today is my first venture into the air since the fateful events of August 10, when God and the TSA decreed that the new commandment for safe flight was thou shalt not bring liquids, yea, neither shalt thou bring gels, nor even mascara.
I have a little ritual at the Salt Lake City airport: I usually get there about an hour and a half early for my lunchtimeish flight to Chicago, go up to the restaurant on the third floor past security, and have a meal of a mediocre cheeseburger and a Samuel Adams beer. My waiter is always a guy named Shan. We have a pretty good rapport, and he asks me how my kitchen renovations are coming along.
Ever since I began this ritual about a couple of years ago, the flatware that comes with my meal has included a plastic knife, as a nod to the successful box-cutter method of hijacking employed on the airliners involved in the September 11th attacks. Never mind that a there’s several orders of magnitude between the feasible deadliness of a factory-honed razorblade and a food-service butter knife; it was, I accepted, a kind of minor penitence, along the lines of giving up chocolate for lent or being told to say Hail Marys as absolution for hating your Mother-in-law. If it made people feel better about flying, then I’d shrug my shoulders and eat with a goddamn plastic knife.
Today, I sat down at my usual table and ordered my usual meal. Shan brought me my beer, flatware, and burger. This is what I received:
When I’d finished my meal, packed up my carry-on, and was being checked through with the rest of Group 3, the TSA guard by the jetway duly rummaged through my backpack in search of contraband Evian. I’d heard they were doing this, but I had to see it myself to truly believe it was happening.
So, what the fallout of August 10 amounts to is this: It is no longer considered likely that anyone will try to hijack an aircraft by sawing through the pilot’s jugular with a butter knife swiped from the airport restaurant, but they do consider the possibility that someone might attempt to drown the flight crew with the contents of a 16-ounce bottle of lemon-flavored Dasani to be a clear and present danger.
posted by Alice at 9:48 PM
6 Comments:
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.
Whoops! That didn't come out right the first time round, did it? Do over...
Here's a weird question. What if you freeze the Evian? Then, technically, it's not a liquid.
Y'know, scientifically that makes sense, but I think they'd give you a cavity search just for being a smartass ;-)
LOL! Small steps.
Cavity search? Naw they'll take it one step further.
Maybe they'll just ban cavities. You won't be able to board until you've had all your orifices superglued shut... :-p
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