Modern technology has created many conveniences for us that eliminate tedious chores and make our lives easier. Take air travel, for instance. It used to be that if you wanted to travel from say, New York to St. Louis, you had to load up the covered wagon, cram the family and everything you owned into a space the size of a phone booth, harness the Oxen (assuming you had some, and if you didn't, why not?), load the shotgun, and head west for about ten or twelve years. Along the way you could expect to encounter hostile natives with bad makeup and sharp arrows, bandits, harsh roads, foul weather, and not to forget, a serious lack of rest areas.
Today, however, things are much simpler. All you have to do is call your local travel agent, or log onto the Internet, and select the flight arrangements that best suit your needs. There will be several flight combinations to choose from, depending on your preferences. For example, you could take a flight from New York to Chicago , then another from there (called a 'connection') to St. Louis . There may even be a 'direct' flight from New York to St. Louis , but these will most likely be twice the price of your current home and unavailable. In fact, most flights that make sense to your travel schedule will fit this description. You will be forced into paying twelve thousand dollars for a ticket if you dare fly in the middle of the day when you are actually awake. Otherwise, a much more affordable ticket will be available if you don't mind leaving at "O' Dark Thirty", in the morning or evening, whichever is the most painful to you. This flight will then proceed to Kansas City for a connection to New Orleans to another connection to (finally) St. Louis . The price on this flight, however, will only be good until tonight at midnight, at which time it will quadruple for no apparent reason (unless it suddenly becomes 'unavailable'). So be decisive.
Seat assignments are another way airlines offer us an array of choices. We may sit in a window seat, an aisle seat, or a middle seat. There are also 'first class' seats, emergency exit row seats, and bulkhead seats. Aisle and window seats normally get reserved first, and if they happen to be in the emergency aisle (which has much more leg room) they disappear fast, so again, be decisive. But his will normally not be a problem, as most flights about which you will inquire will have already booked all the good seats to people who made their reservations thirteen years ago. You will be left to decide if you want a middle seat in the back row (which doesn't recline) or next to the talkative guy. The only problem with the latter choice is you don't know which seats have been reserved for the fat guys until you actually show up, at which time it is definitely too late. If you plan on traveling with somebody else, forget sitting together, it just doesn't happen. 'First class' seating is actually a myth, too. Maybe in some bygone era it actually existed, but no more. These days, even if you have ample money and are willing to pay for a spacious, front seat in the first class section, you can't do it. It is already full of business travelers who have free 'upgrades' to these seats because they fly enough miles in a year to travel to the moon and back forty-seven times. On the outside chance that a first class seat actually is available, the price for upgrading your ticket would be better spent feeding a starving African nation or two.
Now that you have bought your tickets, you will find out that they, also, don't exist. Instead they are called "E-tickets", which is code for "invisible". Simply stand in line at the ticket counter for an hour or two, and then tell them your name. They will type for twenty minutes or more, then look up and say, "Do you have ID?" To which you might answer, "Yes." But that is not really what they want to hear. They actually want you to show them your driver's license so they can see how bad your picture is. Don't worry, though, they will not laugh at it because they have been specially selected upon the basis of having absolutely no personality. It is at this point that you will be informed that your seat assignments have to be modified because several more fat guys showed up and can't all sit on the same side of the plane or it will go around in circles.
Next you will be asked two very important questions. "Has anyone unknown to you asked you to carry anything onto the plane?" And you should be careful to avoid answering, "Why yes, a middle-eastern looking guy asked me to carry this bomb-like package to St. Louis for him. Is something the matter?" The second question will be, "Have your bags been in your possession since you packed them?" Again, navigate these tricky waters carefully. You should never answer, "I guess they haven't. There were several hours where I had no idea where they were. But then we found them in front of a burned out building downtown and just brought them along as they were."
Should you pass these most difficult tests, you can then hand your bags to some guys in white "TSA" shirts. TSA stands for "Taking Some Assets" and refers to the immense amount of tax dollars spent on hiring 6.2 million people and buying them white shirts and TSA patches. These employees of the federal government are making sure you are not Osama bin Laden (even if you are a ninety-two year old lady) and that your bags are packed properly*.
Next you get to pass through security. Again, you will be assisted by our TSA buddies who want to make sure you can take off your shoes and belt and still walk upright. And if you should be so bold to carry a lap-top computer, they will want that baby removed from any carrying case and exposed to the airport elements. Apparently there have been a rash of lap-top computers used in terrorist acts and nobody will ever again perpetrate such crimes. Other known terrorist weapons are watches, under-wire bras, metal studs on blue-jeans, and money clips. The security equipment is specially crafted to identify these items. The biggest thing to know before passing through security is to have your boarding pass out and be wearing clean underwear. The boarding pass will have to be shown to anybody and everybody wearing a TSA white shirt and patch, just in case it metamorphosed while you walked three steps with it. The clean underwear is because you might be half naked by the time they finish stripping you down and verifying you're not Osama bin Laden.
Now you are free to proceed to your gate. A gate is a gathering area where people go to put their clothes back on after going through security, and where loud voices boom incessantly from overhead speakers. It is also a place where planes can be boarded (eventually).
There are also varieties of food available at airports for the convenience of travelers. Anything from hot dogs and soft pretzels to hot dogs and soft pretzels can be purchased for thirty dollars a piece. Receipts are available upon request, of course. There are also magazine racks where in a single glance one can observe the various breast sizes of all the current starlets in Hollywood . Bathrooms are available too, where smart toilets and sinks know just when to flush and rinse (hopefully in that order) automatically.
Then the boarding process begins. A 'gate agent' will yell into a microphone that anybody else besides you is free to board the aircraft first. No matter what rows are called for boarding, people will crowd around the gate so nobody can get through. Dexterity is important here, because you will have to fight your way into the line, present your ID and boarding pass again, and juggle anything you are attempting to carry onto the plane, all at the same time. (We won't even mention how this process goes if you have small children with you!)
Many people will, no doubt, have boarded the plane ahead of you, and will have stuffed the overhead bins with baggage big enough to carry additional passengers. You will then be forced to cram your carry-on baggage under the seat, thereby eliminating any chance for foot room. That's okay, though, because this will give nice symmetry to your elbows, which have nowhere to go because of the fat guys that will sit on either side of you. If their arm hair doesn't keep your shoulders scrunched together, their blatant hogging of the armrests will.
When taking off, you will be given an enthusiastic demonstration of how to buckle a seat belt, because most people who fly on airplanes apparently don't know how this is done. And you will be harassed to no end if you have your seat back reclined or your tray table down. Evidently modern, sophisticated aircraft have an Achilles heal and absolutely cannot be coaxed off the ground under any circumstances if seat backs and tray tables are in the wrong position.
There is normally food served during the flight, the only problem is that it is gerbil food, and small portions at that. But you will eat it, because you sat on the runway for an hour waiting for takeoff and are now wishing you'd have sampled the fine hot dogs and soft pretzels back at the airport. We suggest you adopt the army's attitude toward food, eat anytime and every time you can.
There will be plenty of in-flight entertainment, including the 'going to the bathroom shuffle', where passengers crawl and grope their way from their seats to a tiny closet in the back of the plane called a "LAV". There may also be a movie that you can watch, but these are apparently selected by the ticket agents lacking personalities (remember them?) who are especially adept at choosing movies that stink.
Turbulence, or air pockets that rock the plane around like a yo-yo on a string, is another effective in-flight attraction. Stewardess and stewards (those that pass out the gerbil food) are trained to act as though it is not happening, even if this means ignoring the drink they just spilled on you during the last big jolt. This is because if flight attendants show any sign of fear at all, passengers will respond by pressing the call button located above their seats. Flight attendants hate it when that happens. If the turbulence gets too bad, you may be afflicted with motion sickness. This is a strange event in which you may regurgitate said gerbil food into a little bag and keep it until the end of the flight. Your choice.
The rest of the flight goes pretty quickly, generally, as you get acquainted with your surroundings and the fat guys sitting on either side of you. One of these gentlemen will talk your ear off while the other sleeps on you. The only known deterrent to such behavior is to regurgitate your gerbil food into the little bag, as we mentioned before. When this happens, you will generally be given all the room you need for the rest of the flight.
When it's time to land, watch out for those pesky tray tables and seat backs. Be sure and have them in proper position so the plane doesn't crash, or worse, a flight attendant comes unglued on you. Upon landing, the plane will 'taxi'. This is a fancy word for 'drive on the ground', which is necessary because nobody has come up with the idea of locating runways near airports yet. And whatever you do, absolutely under no circumstances, should you release your seat belt until the 'fasten seat belt sign' has been turned off. This is considered the most dangerous maneuver in air travel, as witnessed by the irate and otherwise violent attitude of flight attendants when this occurs.
Upon uncoiling yourself and exiting the aircraft, you will finally get to see the flight attendants smile as they say, "goodbye!" If you have a connection onto another flight, ask the gate agent for directions to your gate. They will respond with helpful information such as, "It is six miles away and leaving in four seconds. You'd better hurry!" This is why it is a good idea to wear comfortable running shoes and be trained for decathlons (this is also why fat guys don't book connecting flights).
Modern technology sure has made things easier for us. I, for one, would not want to deal with loading a wagon and heading west. That sounds too complicated.
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