Sunday, November 28, 2010

DAMN, DAMN, DAMN, DAMN!!!

THEY'VE GROWN ACCUSTOMED TO MY FACE



Here I am at the globally infamous San Diego Lindbergh Airport, known for its draconian fascist Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (virtual waterboarding of the Naughty Bits) and I was ready for a fight, or at least an invasive pat-down. Instead, we find the lines short, the agents civil, the X-ray of Evil in very limited use (though I did see lanky blonde subjected to it) and by the time we got to the brink of The Sorting, there was a belt across the entrance to The Machine of Nudity, and we were whisked through in mere moments without so much as a friendly arse-pat.

Furthermore, there's a recorded message from the glolbally infamous John Pistole, current Top Dawg at the Transportation Safety Administration, extolling the virtues of his 50,000-strong staff, which appears to be set to run about every five minutes, but so far 4 out of 5 times somebody has hit the kill switch before he's gotten past introduding himself. Guess they figure this announcement is just another form of harassment.

Well, crap, is all I have to say. I was primed to offer myself as a Human Sacrifice in the interest of transportation consumers everywhere. But, even though the threatened Thanksgiving Eve Opt Out Day O' Rage was a bit of a bust, the general outrage and the horror stories of TSA dolts drunk on power seems to have brought about detente between passengers and State Gropers, at least here in Globally Infamous San Diego.

So much for my free mammogram.

Now the most annoying thing about my five hours in the air will be the number of times my movie is interrupted by pilots and flighty attendants giving me information I don't need. in two languages. And the fact that the in-house Air Canada announcements being made in the airport are the only ones with a sound quality slightly worse than the crackles we remember between Earth and Apollo 13. Sheesh.