Flying Somewhere?

About twenty years back, flying on an airplane was an experience I used to long for. Dress well, enjoy the food (sample in other words), read the airline magazine, etc. The dress well part was overdone by a few. I have seen our fellow desi's wear a suit to travel on a plane. No, he wasn't a CEO or a VP. I am not being judgemental here, but I know for a fact that CEO's or VP's don't wear sneakers with a suit.

All this flying excitement has died and become a torture instead. Worse, you pay for it. The number of planes out number public buses and has become affordable. Which means everybody can use it. That's good news. The bad news is the airports have become even more congested. Satellites say they are having a tough time working, with all the stupid planes in the way.

Since 9/11, US has always been at orange alert, for god knows what reason. I guess if they say its green, then Osama would fly the next plane out of Pakistan and land it at the White House he missed last time. The security is crazy. I was asked to come two days before my flight, just so that they can do a mental, physical and medical check up before I fly. 

I crammed in everything possible into my cabin luggage since I had to pay if I was going to check it in. It was so tight that it could explode any minute. Thanks to the guy who tried the liquid bomb, one could take only 1 drop of liquid with them. The only benefit in that is, for the companies who sell shampoo, deo, toothpaste with 1 drop inside them. There's a cap on that too, only 3 drops in total allowed. 

The security check line was backed up all the way till Mexico. To top it up, a Mexican lady with approximately two dozen kids was ahead of me. I kind of lost count after 20. They looked the same too. I got down on my knees and prayed to god that they shouldn't end up on my flight. I had to remove my belt since it, like any other belt had a metal buckle. Which meant I had to hold my pants from falling down. 

Once my carry on went through the x-ray machine, it started gathering attention. They wanted my hand luggage to be opened up because they saw enough wire that go all the way to the moon. They were right since I had my laptop charger, cell phone charger, blue tooth charger, camera charger, Ipod charger, headphones, PSP charger etc.

Apparently there is a new kind of X ray machine, which does a body scan. So we need not remove our shoes, jacket and kidney for them to check. The machine zaps some rays on our body and they could see an outline of our body. I guess the security came up with this as they wanted to see some porn on duty. I don't mind getting a body scan, but really feel sorry for the person looking at the screen. If this gets approved in India, the airports would be burned down for sure.

After another security check, I was finally inside the plane. Yes, the same one as the Mexican lady with 2 dozen kids.