Come Fry The Friendly Skies

In the years since 9/11, air travel has changed quite a bit.
When passing through security, we’ve surrendered the following:

Knitting needles
Pocket knives
Box cutters
Liquids (ahh how I miss byob)
Toothpaste
Shaving cream

The shoe bomber pretty much ensured anyone wearing knee high boots will spend no less than ½ hour passing through security. Think flip flops are the way to go? TSA wouldn’t be that ridiculous you say? Hope you don’t mind Purelling your feet outside the gate.

Did you sell a kidney to fly first class? Enjoy your plastic steak knife.

So where do we go from here? Sure we have an obligation to keep our skies safe and ensure our aircraft are not used as weapons of mass destruction. But can someone tell me how a tube of Aquafresh can bring down a 747?

So what’s next? The pin on your belt buckle might poke someone. All belts are to be checked. Paper can be acidic. No more reading. That’s ok, the people I fly with are such fun to talk to. Clothing can be shredded to rope and used to strangle.

Welcome to the air travel of the next decade. There will be no carry-on. You will check all items which will fly in a special cargo plane, sometimes actually arriving at your destination the same time as you! You will be strip searched, pass through a full body x-ray machine and issued special TSA passenger gowns. When entering the jetway, a sedative will be issued, it’s strength depending on the duration of the flight. By the time you’re seated, you’ll be out cold.

Airlines will welcome this. They’ll get to charge all sorts of new fees like drool-wiping and adult-diaper disposal. And the few frills left like stale coffee and preservative loaded muffins can be dropped completely!

Upon arriving at your destination, those who have not regained consciousness will be cattle prodded (for $3 a prod), taken by wheelchair if needed ($35 per half hour) and hit what feels like a casino to see if they’re lucky enough to receive their luggage.

So I tip my hat to you Bin Laden. Although your well coordinated attack was not nearly as destructive as you may have hoped, you’ve achieved the spreading of your insanity into our commercial airlines. Someday I’ll be able to tell my grandkids of the days when you didn’t need to be an “expert” to clear security in less than an hour. And Boy Scout trinkets weren’t elevated to the risk of biological warfare.