The Stripping of the Joy of Travel
A slow creep of greed and manufactured fear forces us back on the road
“You put your coat over your laptop so we sent it back through.”
“Laptop? Oh.” She meant my iPad but who gives a shit. I want my belt and my shoes and the ball cap that apparently fell out of the bin when being rolled through the x-ray machine.
My things get a pass and I gather it all up. I basically get dressed again and make sure I have everything. I’m traveling light because I’m flying back to Kansas to get my car to drive back.
I haven’t flown in a while and I can’t recall the last time I went through this but I’m pretty sure it back when I was married and the airport with her was always a drudgery. She would ditch me in the place to carry all the crap and, like now, I felt as if I were traveling solo but with more luggage than I would bring. Flying in 2024 is a huge, joyless pain in the ass.
There was a time when air travel was extravagant, fun, and special. Back in the 60’s and 70’s the cabins looked like this:
Since the eighties, as airlines started to try to squeeze more and more people on the planes, it started to shift into this:
After an idiot planted a bomb in his shoe, the big money behind the TSA decided we all had to pull off our shoes and belts and hats in order to get on a plane. Despite the fact that the wand can probably detect a bomb in a shoe, it became the default experience to stand in a long line and strip down a bit in order to go through a giant screening device and make sure you don’t bring more than three ounces of cologne.
I finally get to the gate and wait. Lots of pitches to store carry-ons under the plane which is, at this point, a craps shoot to see if it arrives at your destination so no one buys the pitch. The seats are tight. Seriously tight. I see a guy who must weigh 350 pounds squeezing down the aisle and my first thought is “Christ. Don’t sit here. Don’t sit here.” followed by a wave of depression at what this dude is experiencing what with the obvious horror of his fellow passengers plus the fact that no matter where he sits, he will be even more squashed and uncomfortable for the next two hours than most of the rest of us.
We fly. Within fifteen minutes, I’m shifting in my seat to stretch out my legs just a little bit and move my ass up and down the seat for some sort of potential sleeping mode. Thank god there are no babies on here today.
We land in Dallas, My changeover is tight but I resist the urge to push out as quickly as possible and wait my turn. I rush to the next gate, taking a tram, and walking the equivalent of a half mile. The anxiety of maybe missing the flight is in my throat and I walk as fast as I can. I make it just as my boarding number is called and I gotta pee.
The same pitch. The same cramped seats. The crummy experience continues. By the time I land in Wichita, I’m just relieved to not be flying back to Chicago.
Two days later, after spending some time with my family, I hop in my Prius at 3:00am for the twelve-hour drive.
Plenty of leg room. The open road. Playing my music and podcasts without reservation. Stopping to pee when I want to, spending less than half the cash on gas to drive than to fly in misery. Yes, I’m tired at the end of the trek but not from despair or discomfort. It’s a different kind of tired but one of well traveled journey rather than being delivered in a can to my final heading like an Amazon box.
I tell mom I’m coming to Wichita for Mother’s Day. “Why don’t you fly?”
I’d rather not.
Fear has been a growth industry in this country for a long damn time. It's become one of then few dependable growth industries. It's made much of life a pain in the ass and flying is the poster child.
Be well, mon Ami.