Take Go-gurt, for example. Did we really need a faster way to consume yogurt? Were a bunch of people really sitting around thinking, “Well, we love yogurt, but it just takes so long to eat … is there a way we could leverage Otter Pop technology so we can get those calories faster?”

Or those commercials where the chickens want to be mistaken for ones from Foster Farms. Why, oh, dear lord, why do those poor chickens want to be eaten so badly? Is it some sort of sick death wish?

And when did people start wearing really thick tights in place of pants? Also, how did blue raspberry become a thing? I have never seen a blue raspberry in my life. Never.

It’s just that … I simply DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

But perhaps what mystifies me more than mutant berries and suicidal poultry are my fellow travelers. Time and time again I find myself on planes with people whose actions confound me. I try to understand a scenario in which their behaviors make sense: are they first-time flyers? Drunk? Sociopaths? Or do they know I am watching them and are simply trying to screw with me? (If it’s the latter … well, done. Well done.)

I can’t really say. But they constantly do things that have me hissing, “Why? Dear god, WHY?” while gently ramming my thumbs into my eye-sockets.

And yet, I’m truly grateful to them. Because their antics provide me with hours of free in-flight entertainment and tons of material for my blog.

And so, for this WTF Wednesday, I present the 12 most baffling airplane passengers I’ve encountered in real life. This is the sort of stuff – along with the enduring appeal of Dave Matthews – that keeps me up at night (and if these are the biggest battles I have, then I’m a lucky gal indeed).

1. The person who brings nothing on the plane with them. Absolutely nothing. I don’t getit. What are they going to do when they finish the in-flight magazine? No, no, DON’T START TALKING TO ME. Unless you know where blue raspberries come from. That is information I need to have.
   

   Don't tell me you're going to stare at the natural beauty outside your window for three hours ... because that's just twisted.

   -

2. People who use the lavatory while barefoot. I hate to tell them the truth, but here it is: not every drop of liquid on the bathroom floor is water. Actually, I suspect most of it isn’t.
3. Fliers who unhook their seatbelts the moment the captain indicates that they may do so. As though they are suddenly not traveling at hundreds of miles an hour, tens of thousands of feet high in the sky.
4. Folks who try to recline their chairs when sitting in front of an exit row. They are Don Quixote, feebly chasing after windmills. The look on their face when the flight attendant explains that their seat does not recline is nothing short of devastating. I feel for them, I really do. But how have they never heard of SeatGuru?
5. Individuals who get exasperated at other people’s crying babies. Oh, the shock! The horror! An infant who is crying. Clearly this is the first time that has ever happened in the history of time.
   

   A crying child? Who ever HEARD of such a thing?!

    -

6. Economy passengers who glare at the people in first class. Really? You’re jealous of the guy who’s spent so much of his life in the air that he now gets the privilege of a cup of warm cashews and a few extra inches of legroom in exchange for missing his daughter’s fifth birthday? Right. That makes sense. Glare away.
   

   You get fancy soup and a cheese plate, but your spouse is probably gonna leave you.

   -

7. Anyone who tries to move around the cabin when beverages are being served. They always seem so genuinely shocked that they can’t squeeze around a cart that is designed to take up the entire aisle. In a way, I understand: I’m still trying to squeeze my aisle-wide hips into skinny jeans.
8. The guy who willingly offers to gate check his bag after he’s dragged it all the way on to the plane. I bet he was the sort of kid who reminded his teachers to assign homework on a Friday. He will one day rule the world, and we will resent him for it.
9. IPad owners who spend their flight watching nothing but reruns of Two and a Half Men. Monsters, the lot of them.
10. Folks who bring fast food onto the plane. The idea is to bring something more appetizing than airline food. (Also, to the woman on my flight who unwrapped a Whopper within 10 minutes of departure and slowly ingested it over the course of 45 minutes, leaving the whole cabin wreaking of onions: You, madame, are a sadist.)
    

    The "meat" was so tough I broke my fork on it, and the flight attendant got exasperated when I asked for another one.

    -

11. Fashionistas. Yes, you look amazing. But it took you 45 minutes to get through security, and now your feet are too swollen to fit into your Alexander McQueen hoof shoes so you are headed to the lavatory barefoot. God help us all.
12. Anyone who manages to sleep on a flight. Please, for the love of mankind, teach me how.
    

    To this day, we still talk about this guy.

You, no doubt, have seen some equally weird stuff while traveling, right? Please don’t hesitate to share your stories in the comments section below. And seriously, if anyone can explain Go-gurt, email me. I need to understand.

The other day, Rand and I were talking to one another, which is something we do when we aren’t sleeping, eating, or staring mindlessly at our keyboards (Yup. Our lives are full of romance. ENVY US). I can’t seem to retrace the steps of the conversation to how we got where we did, but at one point, I said one of those crazy, unprecendented statements that causes everyone to pause and reflect on how weird the discussion has become.

It was not precisely this, but something like it:

“I’m just saying, it’s hard to watch the ballet of manhood that is NFL football and not objectify the players like cheap pieces of meat.”

At which point my husband stared blankly at me and said, “I don’t think that combination of words has been uttered together before by anyone.”

This got me to thinking about other combinations of words that had never been uttered together – at least, not in certain contexts. Like, all the seemingly not-that-unusual combinations of words that I have never, ever said in relation to commercial flying. I’ve never commented on how I well prepared I was for a trip. Or how my in-flight magazine was positively riveting. In fact, I was able to come up with a whole boatload of expressions that never left my mouth when talking about air travel:

1. Oh, thank goodness. I have the middle seat! I LOVE THE MIDDLE SEAT.
2. Man, this food is delicious.
   

   It tasted better after I seasoned it with the salt of my tears.

   -

3. These security measures are so darn efficient.
4. That TSA agent was as gentle as she was attractive. (Note: I can actually see how this could be said, albeit not in a complimentary way).
   

   Rand getting gently caressed.

   -

5. The stranger who is seated next to me is being incredibly respectful of my personal space.
6. He also smells wonderful.
7. Aww, did you see all the wonderful people who jumped up to help that woman place her bag in the overhead compartment? Humanity is great.
8. I love flying. We should do MORE of it.
9. You know, they really give you TOO much legroom.
10. I can’t believe how little we paid for these tickets.
11. I think wearing just socks to the airplane lavatory is a great idea!
12. Yay! We landed early AND we have a gate!

I know, I know. I probably sound like a spoiled brat. Hell, I AM a spoiled brat. I have it easy. I get to travel the world, and I get to do it with him:

-

He always helps me with my bag. He always offers to take the middle seat. And he smells really, really good. My life is pretty charmed. I can’t complain. In fact, I’ll never whine about air travel again!

Actually, no, that’s not true. Never complain about air travel again? I … I really can’t believe I said that.

I know. Glamorous, right?  I got to hobnob with Idaho’s elite and get outbid on art created by 6-year-olds. In all fairness, the event was lovely (Ballgowns. Tuxedos. IDAHO. Do not ask more of life.) and when we left, we found that whoever was working coat check had placed little tubes of expensive hand cream everyone’s pockets. They smelled wonderful and looked like something you’d find in the regular-priced section of Anthropologie (which is literally the fanciest place I can think of). I realized they were TSA-compliant (less than 3oz) and they’d easily fit in my toiletry bag, so I figured I’d take them home with me.

Damn it. I just realized that I now can't re-gift these to any of my friends who read the blog. Poop.

Of course, I’d left my massive purse at coat check as well, but I didn’t think to look through it to see if anyone had slipped anything in there. I mean, why would they? Besides, my purse had been with my coat, and a lady only has so much lotion she can put on her skin before she gets the hose again.

When we got to the airport to head back to Seattle, Rand handed me my boarding pass, which I promptly misplaced (this a trait I inherited from my mother. She can literally lose something before you are done telling her the significance of whatever it is and why she shouldn’t lose it). I frantically began searching through my purse, and there, at the bottom of my huge satchel, I felt something.

“What the fuh …?”

It was a huge tube of lotion. Like, HUGE. Roughly twice the size of the other two that had been nestled in our coat pockets, and literally as BIG AS MY TOOTHPASTE:

The tube on the bottom is 4.7 oz, so I'm guessing the lotion is, oh, I'd know ... WAY OVER THE TSA LIMIT.

-

That quarter is there not for scale, but rather because I like to show off my wealth.

-

Now, obviously the folks at coat check had no idea that we were going to take a flight the very next day, and it was a lovely gesture to give us such a nice gift, but still. It seems like if you are going to start sneaking things into purses, you might want to give folks fair warning (Like, “There’s a surprise in your bag from us!” But you know, less sexual and creepy sounding). After all, my purse is roughly the size of a couch cushion. I can’t find things that I put in there, much less what someone else stashed without my knowledge.

I stood, just on the other side of airport security, somewhat freaked out. If I hadn’t lost my boarding pass (which I found, thankfully) and hadn’t rummaged into my purse, and hadn’t landed upon the huge tube of lotion, I might have found myself in a huge mess.

“Ma’am, is this hand cream yours?”

“What? No. I’ve never seen that before in my life.”

“It was in your bag.”

“It was what? Oh, yeah! I left my purse unattended last night. Someone must have put it in there without my knowledge or consent.”

At which point, an ill-tempered TSA agent would have treated me to a  a strip search and possibly a colonoscopy.

I know that the people at the event meant well. I know it was a nice gesture. And I truly love fancy hand creams and sweet smelling sundries (plus, dude, they’re pretty damn pricey). But still, Dick Move, Coat Check People. I don’t care how expensive health care is in this country. My next pelvic exam is coming from my doctor, and NOT from some underpaid agent working the security line.

It seems we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.

I see this as largely your fault, of course. When you saw me quietly sleeping in my chair, you – for reasons that defy logic (Was it curiosity? Thoughtlessness? Demonic possession? I’m leaning towards the latter) – decided to shake the back of my seat vigorously until I woke up.

Now, I’m not one to claim I’m a heavy sleeper. I’ve been woken up by the ticking of a wrist watch before. But kid, I was out. I’d just spent days with my family, who conveniently live under the San Diego airport flight path in an uninsulated bungalow that shakes and trembles every time a plane screeches overhead. Not only will any sleep you get will be in fitful anticipation of the next arrival or departure, but, to add insult to exhaustion, some members of my family wake up at ungodly hours. Kid, did you know there was a 5 am? And that my uncle is almost always awake for it? And, for reasons that escape me, REARRANGING DISHES IN HIS KITCHEN?

Even at your tender age, little blond kid (what are you, eight? nine? At what age are children too old to be considered adorable, but still sticky? Because that’s where you are), I hope you realize how effed up it is for my uncle to be unloading the entirety of his china cabinet before the sun has dared shed light on our corner of the planet.

Between the earth-shaking boom of the planes and the antics of humans under the delusion that they are roosters, by the time Rand and I headed home the day after Thanksgiving, I was knackered.  Exhausted. You can imagine my relief when I found out we were upgraded. Even though we spend roughly 1/3 of all our waking hours in airports, first class is something that eludes us. It is a rare treat when I find that we have plush leather seats and a snack available to us. The second we started to ascend, I was out. Ironic, when you think that this same plane probably woke me up earlier this week.

What’s more, I was having that really good dream I have. The one where I’m at a thrift store, and all the expensive clothes I’ve ever wanted are there, and they’re barely used and super cheap and they’re all in my size! And I get to fill my cart up and the total for all my purchases is something like $15. It’s glorious.

What’s that? NO, it is NOT a stupid dream, KID. And no, it does not suggest that I am materialistic (who the hell taught you that word, but failed to teach you the basics of living in our society? WHO?). It just means that I love a good bargain! It is a wonderful dream, and you woke me from it, just as I was trying on that Madewell jersey blazer that I’ve wanted for months. What’s worse, you did so by shaking my chair like an epileptic in the throes of an orgasm ( … okay, you are far too young for me to have said that. But if your parents let you roam freely around the cabin like an aerial version of Lord of the Flies, I suspect you’ve heard worse.)

Kid, do you know what it is like to be woken up on a plane by being shaken violently? I’m not a nervous flyer, but I was hurled from the golden dew of sleep gasping, convinced that this was, in fact, the end. I was going to die in a hideous plane crash on the day after Thanksgiving, and no one in my family would be able to eat turkey again without weeping (or so I like to think).

Instead, I found, to a mix of relief and annoyance, it was not my imminent doom that woke me, but you. And as I stared at you with bloodshot eyes that sought for an explanation, you merely stared at me, and then proceeded to sneeze in my face before marching up to the front lavatory. You slammed the door shut, did your business, and when you can back down the aisle, you glared at me.

Rand, unaware of what abuses you’d inflicted on me before saw only your face and noted, “Man. That little kid just gave you the look of death.”

Later, when I myself heeded the call of nature, I’d discover that someone had given the bathroom floor a fresh misting of urine. In the interest of fairness, I will allow that it might not have been you, kid. It may have been the gentleman sitting across from me who is at least 50 years of age. But given that he has at least 40 years more experience peeing in toilets than you, I suspect it wasn’t him.

All of that is behind us, now, little blond kid. You returned to your seat one row behind me, next to your exhausted, dozing father. I considered for a brief moment waking him up in the same manner you did to me, but decided to let him sleep. He’s dealt with you every day for the last decade or so, and will deal with you every day for another decade. He needs his rest.

A very cranky Everywhereist (foreground) and the sleeping father of the demon child (background).

-

But while I did not voice my frustration to your father, I still felt it, kid. I was exhausted, yet my body was coursing with the adrenaline that had been released when I thought we were plunging towards the earth (as an aside, having a bunch of adrenaline in a situation like that WOULD HAVE BEEN HELPFUL HOW?). And then something happened, kid, that made me forget all of that.

After we had landed, and we all were waiting to get off the plane, I heard sobbing. I turned around, and saw you wailing – absolutely wailing - while your dad attempted to comfort you. Apparently you had been jabbed in the eye by something (it may have been your little sister, your own fists of which you CLEARLY have no control, or the swift hand of fate. Whatever.) and were in hysterics.

I stared at you, kid, while you sobbed, and I actually felt sorry for your little demonic self. Because no matter how evil we are, how often we shake awake poor, exhausted strangers who have done nothing to us, we’re still human. We’re still squishy and mortal and we need sympathy and love.

Looking at you, kid, I understood this notion. And seeing your exhausted father try to comfort you, I knew that one day you’d understand it, too: that even the most obnoxious of us is fragile and delicate and needs to be hugged and comforted.

So here’s to the less shitty person you will one day be, kid. Until then? Cover your mouth when you sneeze, learn to aim your urine stream, and for the love of all that is holy, don’t wake me up unless the plane is actually crashing.

Actually, you know what? If we are going down, just let me sleep. Thanks.

Sincerely,

The Everywhereist

And the reminders are not entirely painless. They’re reminiscent of the love bites my cousin’s dog gives. You think you’re playing around, and then all of a sudden -

“OUCH.”

You make it through intact, but still – it’s shocking, and it stings a bit, and it reminds you that the universe is not kidding around. And this past week, the universe nipped us. Big time.

In truth, we might have been asking for it. Life was getting just a little too easy. A little too fun. And maybe, just maybe, we were starting to take it for granted. And so the universe, in an effort to keep us humble, to remind us of how lucky we actually are, decided to remind us that it was still there.

It cause us unaware, and left us bruised and baffled, standing outside of SeaTac Airport, when we should have been on a plane to Paris. Rand and I tried to make sense of what happened. We had managed to miss our flight by a long shot (as in, we got the day flat-out wrong). And we’d just learned that in the world of Air France, if you miss a ticket, you forfeit the fare. We were not only down a trip to France, we were down a few grand, as well. On top of all that, we were forced to endure a heap of abuse from a woman at the Air France ticketing desk who was so heinous to us, even her fellow co-workers noticed that she had gone too far (a word of advice: when you scream at people who are willing to pay a great deal of money to fly on your airline, telling them that there is absolutely no way you are going to let them on the flight, even if there’s room … well, you sorta relinquish moral high ground).

Weirdly enough, I was calm about the whole thing. As the woman at the desk lied to me outrightly (and at one point, her co-workers were openly disagreeing with her, pointing to their computer screens and saying, “But that’s not true …”), I held my composure. Not because it’s in my character (it certainly isn’t). Nor did I do it because I believed her to be in the right (a dim-witted third-grader on Jeopardy! would have been less wrong). No. Instead, I stood there, utterly powerless and completely okay with it, because I knew that this screaming Air France employee wasn’t in control. The universe was.

And for whatever reason, it didn’t want us to go to France.

So we walked away.

I won’t lie: it hurt like hell. The friends who we were supposed to spend time with in Paris look like they’re having an amazing time, and the photos they’ve posted to Facebook make my heart ache.

OUCH.

-

But for whatever reason, Rand and I were meant to be in Seattle this week. And on Saturday night, just as our would-be plane was landing at Charles De Gaulle, Rand and I found ourselves in a karaoke bar on Highway 99 in North Seattle. An older gentlemen in a sports coat was belting out a rendition of Barry White’s “Can’t Get Enough Of Your Love” that can only be described as inspired. And as I danced with my husband, amongst a group of mostly drunken friends, I whispered in his ear.

“I do so love Paris in springtime,” I said.

He immediately started to apologize.

“It’s fine,” I said. And I meant it. We’d get to Paris, eventually. But right now, the universe needed to show us who was in charge. And it had picked the venue. Hell, it had even dictated the soundtrack.

But I got to pick my dance partner.

-

What’s that? Er, no, I’m sorry. Not the man in foreground. The man in the foreground is my husband. He has many lovely attributes, of which “god-like” is not one. He is charitable and kind and good, and he often smells fantastic. While he is one of the best humans I’ve ever been fortunate enough to encounter, he is still human.

No, the man to which I refer is this one, here:

-

He is no mere mortal. Mortals cannot sleep on planes. Mortals require quiet surroundings and consistent altitudes to sleep. They need dark rooms devoid of screaming babies; to spend long hours free of screechy announcements from the cockpit. But this man? He required none of those things. Instead, he boarded our flight from Boston to Seattle, sat down, and within minutes, enjoyed the golden dew of sleep. And he did not stir. Not when the passengers next to him, imprisoned in their middle and window seats, finally gave up any hope that he would wake and climbed over him to use the facilities. Nor when the beverage cart lumbered down the aisle, crudely banging his elbow (for in his mindless oblivion, he did not hear the 120-decibal warning blaring from the speaker above, instructing him to tuck in his arms and legs). Through turbulence and smooth flying, through ascent and descent, from east coast to west, he slept.

He is no mere mortal.

Would that I had his power. In otherwise pitch-black hotel rooms, I find myself draping articles of clothing over every blinking light and digital screen (to the good staff of a-hotel-that-shall-remain-unnamed: I am sorry for slapping a pantyliner to the digital thermostat on the wall. The blinking lights were driving me crazy. Also, the pantyliner was clean.) I’ve worn earplugs to bed, because a sound in the distance, barely above a whisper when it reached me, was too much to endure. And I’ve have trouble falling asleep in the past because the sound of my blood pumping in my own ears was too much for me. All signs that I am not a by-product of countless years of evolution, as my lack-of-sleep should have rendered me eaten by wolves long ago.

If only we had a Prometheus, to steal this god’s gift of sleep and share it among us mere mortals. What would the punishment for such a crime be? Being chained upon a hill, forced to polish off plates of lukewarm coach airline food every day, only to have them reappear the next morning? Or maybe just a really long layover in Newark?

Alas, I realized I had no hope of being able to so effortlessly enter and exit unconsciousness. The moment the plane’s wheels hit the ground, his eyes opened. He rubbed them gently, and within seconds looked refreshed and wide-awake.

When Armageddon comes, I suspect he will be the last survivor. Long after the cries of the wretched, burning in hellfire, have died down, after the earth has been scorched and no trace of life exists, he will wake. Looking around, he’ll wonder what exactly happened while he slept. And finding no one around to answer his question, he might just roll over and catch a few more winks, because really, why not?

Bastard.

-

I’m referring to the one on the right, closest to the window. I realize that he doesn’t look that evil from this picture, but neither did that little kid from The Omen, and he was the son of Lucifer.

So I’m simply saying don’t dismiss a douchebag by his cover. Context is everything in this picture. As you can glean from his surroundings, the entire cabin was dark, and the overhead lights were turned off. The stilted, I-spit-in-your-general-direction in-flight service that Air France is known for had stopped. It was midnight in Paris, our port of departure, and people were exhausted and struggling to sleep. But it was incredibly difficult to do so. Why?

That asshole in the photo above would not close his damn window. And for that, I say, Dick Move.

The people in the cabin tossed and turned, squinting in his general direction, hoping he’d get a clue. He did not. He kept it open for the entire trans-Atlantic international flight. It was as though he had never been on a plane before (though I doubt that was true – he was clearly on a business trip) and couldn’t bare to miss one second of all the nothingness passing below us. At one point, I peeked out of our window to check if there was anything worth seeing. It was like staring at a lightbulb.

But wait – it got worse. He had his cell phone out, and was doing something with it (seriously, I only vaguely understand what you can do with a smartphone on a plane. After a few hours, Angry Birds loses its appeal). Whatever it was, it meant that the light from the window was hitting the screen on his camera, and reflecting blinding rays of light directly onto – you guessed it – me and Rand. It was like he was signaling planes with a mirror … right onto our faces.

Now, I know – he got a window seat, it’s his right to keep it open, blah, blah, blah. It’s also his right to fart freely and not wear deodorant, but I wouldn’t condone those behaviors, either, and particularly not on a plane.

People in the cabin turned to stare at us, exhausted and sympathetic. A few lifted their sleep masks and shook their heads sadly (you can, in fact, see at man at left in the phone, struggling to sleep). Tired of having our retinas seared, Rand and I stood up. The look of hope on the other passengers’ faces was apparent. Someone was going to do something!

A lovely French woman leaned over to me.

“Are you going to zay zometing?” she asked, in a excited whisper. “Because he is very rude. I cannot sleep! We are so very tired.”

“I know. He’s a douche.” (Note: “douche” does not translate into French.)

We stood, flapping our arms to get the guy’s attention. He was obviously quite good at ignoring the feelings and sufferings of others, as quite literally the entire cabin noticed us before he did.

He looked up, utterly confused, and it was only as he sat there staring at us, and the reflection of the sunlight off of his phone hit us square in our faces and we fell to the ground, blinded, that he realized what the problem was. Making sure we saw exactly how much of a burden it was for him, he slowly lowered the shade of his window.

The entire cabin nearly erupted in applause. I heard sighs and whispers of relief.

Until, literally four seconds later, he proceeded to open his other window.

I shit you not. This asshole had access to TWO WINDOWS, and when we asked him to close one, he opened the other. The faces in the cabin, brightly lit by the harsh light of his window, were etched with pain and desperation. Somewhere, someone began to weep, softly. I heard prayers whispered in a variety of languages, all of them quietly imploring the mercy of a god who had clearly forsaken them.

Not ready to be defeated this close to success, Rand stood again, and flapped his arms, a majestic pigeon of hope. Our foe looked at him again, and closed his second window … only to reopen the first one.

Rand looked at me, incredulous. He sat down, defeated. It was hopeless.

And it was that point, dear readers, that I took out my camera and decided to document this asshole. Seriously, DICK MOVE INCONSIDERATE WINDOW SEAT GUY. You are heinous and rotten and selfish – and likely have a bright future ahead of you should you ever decide to work for AirFrance.

We're not in hell, I promise. Hell's flags are different.

-

You know that old joke about heaven and hell? How in heaven, the police are British, the engineers are German, the cooks are Italian, the lovers are French? And how in hell, the roles are jumbled up? The police are German, the cooks are British, and, perhaps most cruelly of all, the bureaucrats are Italian.

And while the more culturally sensitive of you are rolling your eyes at the broad brush with which that joke paints Europeans, a few of you, like me, are knowingly nodding your head. If you’ve traveled at all, you know that the police in the U.K. are generally lovely, and you know the feeling of pure relaxation that comes after hearing your airplane pilot speak to the cabin in German-accented English. And if you are truly unfortunate, you know the hell of any organizational, governmental, or bureaucratic system in Italy.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, here is pretty much things go: take a bunch of screaming people. Put them in a room. Make sure no one has any idea of the specific details of their jobs, and that, upon any request to do the work for which they are paid, they look at you with scorn and exasperation. Add a coffee break every half-hour or so, and a cigarette break every fifteen minutes. And give substantial days off in the event of local festivals, and the birthdays of any saints, including all of those minor and fictional (“We can’t go into work! It’s St. Giuseppe the Flatulent’s Birthday!”). You know now what it’s like to work in Italy.

In every airport, train station, museum, or governmental office I’ve been in, I’ve scratched my head wondering exactly how anything gets done. Like, at all. I don’t expect big things (like citizenship or passport applications) to go through, but I don’t understand how all the small things, like the fixing of  leaky pipes and grocery-store deliveries, happen at all.

This is the miracle of Italy. Not the ancient ruins or the amazing food or wine or the art that spans centuries. No. It’s a miracle that the entire boot-shaped peninsula (and the island it’s been mercilessly kicking since god was a boy) hasn’t been swallowed up in a black void of nothingness. Bill Bryson puts it best in the delightful Neither Here nor There (read it immediately if you haven’t already. I’ll wait.):

The country has the social structure of a banana republic, yet the amazing thing is that it thrives. It now has the fifth biggest economy in the world, which is a simply staggering achievement in the face of such chronic disorder. If the Italians had the work ethic of the Japanese, they could be masters of the planet. Thank goodness they don’t.

And so, given this bacchanalia and chaos, you can imagine my concern when Rand and I were departing from Fiumencino airport in Rome for London a few weeks back.

We were, I was sure, going to get sucked into that black void.

We approached the security checkpoint not in a line, for queues don’t exist in Italy, but in an amorphous blob of people. The smell of humanity was thick in my nostrils as I braced myself for being yelled at (I am always being yelled at in Italy. But that’s another blog post. One I promise I will get to). Despite an entire lifetime of being screamed at by Italians, I have built up zero sensitivity to it. Quite the opposite really: my response to it is Pavlovian – my blood pressure spikes in anticipation. This is a problem when one considers that essential yelling is to Italian life – people do it constantly – even whispering in Italian requires you to raise your voice.

Given how often I was yelled at stateside by security agents, I could not imagine what the Italian equivalent would be. From our position (mid-blob, slightly to the left), I could already hear the Italian-equivalent of the TSA barking at people. I nervously started wringing my hands as the blob lurched forward, and a young mother with a baby strapped in a carrier to her chest was thrown to the front.

I watched intently as the agents explained she couldn’t go through with the child in the carrier, and that she’d have to remove him. The young woman looked nervous – she didn’t seem to speak much Italian. Finally, one of the agents snapped impatiently, “Stai da sola?” Are you alone?

The girl nodded.

“Okay,” the agent said. “I’ll help you.”

And in that moment, I remembered why, despite all the crazy, I love Italy. The mother handed her child to the agent, who in a blink transformed from a disgruntled Italian airport worker into the Roman equivalent of Maria Von Trapp. She bounced the baby up and down gently, cooing at him, while his mother finished removing the carrier and walked through the metal detector to join him.

No shouting. Not even a single tear.

Moments later, a second child arrived at the security gate with his mother. He looked about five years old, green-eyed, with a mop of curly ash-blond hair. Another agent was monitoring his side of the line – a large, gruff man with slicked back shoulder length hair.

“Veni,” he barked at the little boy. Come.

Here we go, I thought to myself. The black void, come to swallow this little Christmas card of a boy.

“Veni,” the agent repeated. “Veni, tesoro.”

Wait, what? Tesoro? Seriously? It’s what my uncle called me when I was little. Tesoro mio. My treasure.

Come, treasure.

And the little boy skipped through, and the agent ruffled his hair absent-mindedly as he passed.

In this manner, something crazy happened. The blob advanced. No, it wasn’t lightening fast. And yes, there were raised voices. It was chaotic and noisy, punctuated with the occasional burst of laughter, the ruffling of a child’s hair, the cooing of a baby. This is how things happen in Italy. It doesn’t have the cool, mechanical efficiency of Germany, or even the U.S. for that matter. It is grimy and crowded and intimate and a bit pungent. But things do happen.

On the other side of security, Rand and gathered our belongings. A woman behind us had just walked through the metal detector, and set it off. Her eyes widened, mortified. She held her arms up above her head, and froze.

The agent, the gruff one with the slick backed hair looked at her impatiently.

“Madame,” he said, “Put your arms down. I’m not a police officer and you aren’t under arrest.”

And yet, her position, almost absurd in its vulnerability, is required of people going through the backscatter machines in the U.S. And here, he was rolling his eyes as she held her arms up. The entire scene? It was downright un-American.

It was Italian.

Photo by the fantastic @sallysimpleton, who I really need to visit now that I'm home.

Misery, thy name is Air France.

Rand and I are home after a long trip to Europe, a trip made even longer and more difficult by the good people of Air France. They must have an extreme fondness for us – as they did everything possible to try and keep us the country, and when they couldn’t prevent us from leaving, they kept our suitcase as a souvenir. Forgive me if I have trouble writing this post, but this Dick Move is still fresh, like a crisp baguette still warm from the oven (also, apparently I am hungry, and thinking about French things isn’t helping).

Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? We booked our tickets with Air France months ago – sometime in January. It was our first time flying with the airline, and we hadn’t really heard anything (good or bad) about it. Our flight to Europe was without incident, and the plane was a newer one. We were in the Premium Voyageur section, and while not quite as nice as BA’s World Traveler Plus, it was still pretty darn comfy. It was on our return flight that things started to break down. We were going to be flying from London to Paris, and from Paris on to Seattle.

Though it was ridiculously early (5:20 in the morning) there was already a line at the Air France check-in counter, and seemingly no where else. Our flight was at 6:40, and the line was short, so I wasn’t concerned. That is, until we realized the line wasn’t going anywhere. The attendants at the counters took forever with every traveler who approached them. After 20 minutes, we finally made it to the front of the line, and the woman at the counter printed out my ticket, but aimlessly was punching at the computer in order to get Rand’s “released.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “But the tickets are blocked, and I can’t seem to get you one.”

“What do you mean the tickets are blocked?”

“The flight is oversold, so it isn’t letting me assign you a ticket.”

Rand and I stood, confused.

“But we have a reservation,” we explained. “We booked these tickets months ago.”

“Yes, but it is oversold. There is nothing I can do.”

Those of you who travel a lot probably know how this works – all airlines oversell their flights by about 15%. They assume that some people won’t make the flight, so it’s how they can be assured that all the seats will be filled. If everyone shows up for the flight, there are too few seats, and people will be bumped off the flight. As unjust as it sounds, it’s usually the folks with the cheaper tickets that get bumped first (or those flying on free or reward tickets. Yeah. Taunt the wretched, I always say.)

I’ve always known that this was a risk when traveling, but it never bugged me. In the states, the airline usually requests volunteers to be bumped (and compensates them with free travel vouchers). And without fail, someone takes it. We always get a seat – we usually fly Alaska Airlines (a partner of Air France) on which Rand has frequent flier status, and when we fly internationally we travel in the just-a-smidge-above-economy class, both of which reduce your chances of being bumped. Also, it is incredibly unusual for one person in a party or two or three to get bumped. It’s far more likely that a solo traveler would get kicked off. But here we were, in risk of me going home alone, and Rand getting stuck in London or Paris.

Now, this alone was not enough to merit Air France a Dick Move. But the sheer incompetence with which they run their airline? Yeah, that did it.

Keep in mind, we never check baggage – but I’d done a bit of shopping in Italy (sorry, Rand). Oh, and in London. So my bags were bulging, and I had acquired an extra one along the way, which I checked. Rand, due to fatigue, decided to check his bag as well. This was where we messed up. We should have just taken it with us as a carry-on. But we had been up since four, so we weren’t really thinking straight. Again, sorry, Rand. I should have thought better on that one.

The attendant refused to take Rand’s suitcase, saying if he didn’t get on the plane, then they’d have to remove the bag, causing delays. Instead, she managed to get him a ticket to Paris (and no further) and gave us vague directions to talk to some young man over at another counter. We eventually found him, and Rand had to jump the line to get his attention (by now we were in danger of missing our flight). The man took Rand’s bag, gruffly told him he probably wouldn’t get on the flight to Seattle, and walked away in a hurry.

During their exchange, I chatted with a group of Londoners who had just gotten booted off our same flight. Like us, they had made the reservations months ago. Together we lambasted Air France, and they wished me luck getting home, saying that there was hope, since there were now four extra seats that they had been forced to vacate.

When we finally got on our plane to Paris, we found that we were not seated together (no surprise), and, weirdly, that there were a ton of empty seats in Air France equivalent of first class (at least a dozen of them) that were never filled. Rather than upgrade people, Air France chose to kick them off the flight instead. Ugh. Dick Move.

But wait, there’s more!

In Paris, we walked up to a counter, and a woman printed out a ticket for Rand, with absolutely no difficulty. We were incredibly relieved. He was coming home. We inquired about his bag - she noted that it was all checked through. When we arrived on our flight, we found that our seats were not the ones we had reserved (we had requested aisle and window, but were crammed onto a row with a third traveler), were in the bulkhead (which I hate) and that, again, there were tons of seats in first class which went vacant. So Rand had almost been left in London, and then Paris, because Air France doesn’t understand that when you oversell in the cheaper cabins YOU HAVE TO UPGRADE PEOPLE IF THERE’S ROOM IN FIRST.

At this point, though, I was willing to call it good.

But Air France wasn’t finished being a total dick. When we arrived in the states, we waited for ages for our bags to come. Mine eventually did, and after half-an-hour of waiting, we found that Rand’s did not. When we asked an Air France employee she noted that they had been paging us for half an hour (This was a lie. “Rand Fishkin” was not paged once. “Fuzzy Lumpkin,” however, was paged at least a half dozen times). They explained that our bag did not make the flight (since Rand didn’t have a ticket through to Seattle when we left London, they never had any intention of putting our bag all the way through. All the employees who told us to the contrary were either misinformed or lying). It’s apparently leaving today (maybe) and we might get it on Wednesday (again, maybe).

And so, for this cacophony of events, for this terrific display of ineffectiveness and ineptitude, I can say, Dick Move, Air France.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the local French bakery. I’m in desperate need of a croissant.

The backspace key is now removable.

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I’d like to take a few moments to remember, with extreme fondness, Rand’s dear departed laptop.

It traveled with us across the globe. It never made weird sounds, it was quick to start up, and had a battery life that was unusually long. It was lightweight and kept my lap warm on cold winter nights when I sat on the couch browsing the internet.

It was a good laptop, and it left us too soon.

It met its end last Friday, at the hands of a TSA agent in San Diego airport. They were sending everyone through the back-scatter machines, and Rand and I opted out, as we usually do. TSA kept us waiting longer than usual for our pat-downs. A line formed behind us of other opt-outs, but they soon decided to simply go through the back-scatter machines – a TSA tactic that I’m familiar with. Inconvenience anyone who expresses dissent to the point that they’ll fall back into line. It worked with basically everyone except Rand and me.

For those of you unfamiliar with the opt-out process, TSA will make you stand aside until they locate an agent to physically pat you down. This usually takes a while, during which the agents will roll their eyes at you and otherwise express disdain (at least, in my experience). Once they find an agent, they walk you through to a screening area where you will be pat down. They remove all of your things from the x-ray conveyor belt, and carry them over to the where you are being screened. During this time, you are unable to touch any of your items – only the TSA can do so, because once you have opted out, you start to lose your rights and are treated like a criminal.

Actually, once you enter security screening, you lose your rights and are treated like a criminal, but I digress.

I was being patted down by an agent whose name tag read “Jones.” I opt out a lot, so the pat-down for me is not a big deal, usually. But Agent Jones seemed to be in a bad mood – whether situational or dispositional, I can’t say. But she seemed incredibly angry. She was brusque with her description of the pat-down. I replied yes to all her questions, and then she started the process.

Like I said, I get patted-down, a lot. I’m used to it. It’s not that big a deal. Until that day. Agent Jones did not have a delicate touch. She rammed her hand into my crotch three times during my pat-down. It was more than incidental touching, and I was wearing thin jeans. It was shocking to say the least.

When my pat-down was over, I was allowed to gather my things. I did so, and noticed Rand was sitting a little ways away. He was in a chair, looking uncomfortable. A TSA agent was hovering over him. Rand has his laptop turned on, and the agent was peering down at the screen.

I wanted to go over and ask what the hell was going on (since when is TSA allowed to search the content on our laptops, too?) but knowing that was a bad idea, I just stood where I was until the agent told Rand he could put his things away, and left. I walked up and asked Rand what was going on.

“He dropped my laptop.”

Boy, did he. As I noted before, once you opt-out, or are selected for additional screening, you can’t touch your own possessions. TSA has to move them. Rand offered to help with his stuff, because there was a lot of it, but the agent insisted he could carry it all. He couldn’t. He dropped Rand’s laptop, cracking the plastic case, knocking off keys, and irreparably damaging the screen and it.

Look! You can now see inside. Which is not good.

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He told Rand to turn it on to see if it was damaged.

“And you did?” I asked, mortified.

“He told me to,” Rand explained. “I had to do what he said.”

The agent – in a position of total power in this situation – made Rand check for damages while he hovered over his shoulder. The thing could have erupted into a puff of smoke when Rand hit the “on” button and I’m sure he would have said it was fine.

Note to TSA: No one will honestly tell you when you’ve broken their stuff because THEY ARE AFRAID OF YOU. YOU CAN LOCK THEM UP.

So Rand’s laptop turned on. Which, as those of you who’ve ever used a computer know, means nothing. It’s like saying a car works because when you turn the key, the ignition starts. There are, of course, a million other things that are required to get a car to actually drive. Much like a computer. Turning it on? That’s one thing. Getting it to work? That’s another.

I wanted to do something – get the agent’s name, or something, but he had already booked it to the other side of security, where we couldn’t reach him. I ended up telling another agent what had happened, and she called over a supervisor.

It got worse from there. The supervisor refused to give us the agent’s name (which, I’ve since discovered, it incredibly useful when filing a claim with the TSA. No name? No claim). Instead, he told us we could claim online, then demanded to see Rand’s identification, which he took and photocopied.

“Just so we aren’t ambushed,” he explained (the irony of his statement did not resonate with him).

We stood there, waiting for the guy to come back with Rand’s I.D. The trip through security had taken us more than half an hour, and we were on the verge of missing our flight. He eventually brought back the I.D., but by that time, we were more than sufficiently intimidated.

After all, TSA had Rand’s name. They had our address. They had breathed down Rand’s neck while they made him open up his laptop. They kept us waiting while THEY PHOTOCOPIED HIS I.D. And this, mind you, was before we had even brought up the issue of a claim.

We left security feeling miserable. As we did so, I noticed that the metal detector had been opened up, and they were now sending people through there.

———-

We eventually boarded our flight (after a two-hour delay due to a malfunctioning gauge on the plane), but what had happened in security messed with my brain more than I thought it would. I felt sick. I kept thinking about the agent hovering over Rand, as he tried to get his computer to turn on. I’d never seen my husband look intimidated, ever, until that moment.

I may have cried.

Dick Move, TSA. Dick Move.

Now, we’re back at home, and Rand, in his ever-present quest to atone for sins that are not his, has been trying to cheer me up. We’re not really sure what to do now. He needs a new laptop for work, obviously, as the one TSA dropped is in no shape for use, much less travel. We could file an appeal, but that’s a lengthy process that requires you to have the agent’s name, which the supervisor refused to give us (though I did get the supervisor’s name – it’s Zaitz, for what it’s worth). And given how much we were intimidated before filing a claim, lord knows what it would be like afterward. Rand is praying that he’s not on a list already. Given how much we fly, we can’t afford to be flagged by TSA for being problematic.

So I suppose we just have to take the loss on a computer that cost us over a grand and was in perfect condition until last weekend. Besides, even if we do file, the TSA is the one who reviews our claim, and it seems unlikely that they wouldn’t find in their own favor. The conflict of interest there is so absurd, I have trouble wrapping my head around it.

As for our laptop, R.I.P., little buddy. You deserved a better end than the one you received. You were destroyed without so much as even an apology from the TSA agent. I understand that doing so would have been akin to declaring culpability, but at some point, we have to stop being bureaucratic tools and start acting like people again.

But that’s unlikely to happen at a security checkpoint.

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