The Agony of Flight

Practically everyone has written an essay about how bad flying sucks today compared to the old days. For a while I was going to take the moral high road and not stoop to such an essay myself, but then I said "The hell I am!"

I don't know when flying officially turned to shit. Many people think it's a consequence of 9/11 and the absurd security restrictions that were applied not long thereafter and which intensify to this day. Yes, absurd. How many airplane accidents have been caused in the past by butane cigarette lighters, or six-ounce bottles of sunscreen? It's frankly ridiculous, a symptom of our willingness to jettison civil rights and even common sense in the search for an illusory sense of security, but Americans seem to be uniquely vulnerable to that sort of lunacy.

But flying started to suck long before 9/11, and I can't really blame the TSA and goofy American fetish for security at the cost of rationality for the change.

When I was younger, flying was a shared adventure. Here we are, a bunch of people in a metal tube, about to hurl ourselves into the air in search of adventure, the stratosphere, and other landscapes. It was a communal exercise, a communal thrill, something new and exciting and somehow ineffably modern. The airplanes were inefficient turbojet-powered screamers that puked huge clouds of black smoke into the air and pilots still squinted at pointers and needles on dials, but somehow we got through it and when we landed, there was a sense that we had done something significant.

And it was treated that way. There were meals and civility and plastic wings for the kids. The phrase "jet set" meant something. Flying wasn't just a tawdry form of mass transportation; it was in a way a part of the vacation itself. "We're flying to Mogadishu," someone would say, and we would think "Well, Mogadishu's no picnic, but the flying part will be fun!"

Now we're just cattle. We may as well bellow and blow snot as we board the airplane. The flight attendants can't be bothered with our pathetic needs, the seats are so close together a normal-sized adult male can't sit down without losing both kneecaps, you're lucky if you get to keep the can when you ask for a 7-Up, and the aisles are so narrow the beverage cart threatens to take your elbows off.

Passengers don't do themselves any favors either. Back in the old days, carry-on bags were relatively modest things, but now they're enormous! Entire families of Cambodians could fit in some of the larger carry-ons, and how many times have I had to stand in the aisle and wait because some chunkhead is trying to pack an overstuffed carry-on the size of a refrigerator into an overhead compartment?

Then there are the passengers that never quite seem to light. They pack their stuff into the overhead compartments and they sit down. No, wait, they need an aspirin! So they get up and rummage around in their bags, get an aspirin, and sit down again. No, wait, they need their Sudoku book! No, wait, they need their paperback! Their custom-fitted cervical collar! Their sunglasses! And every time one of these mental giants feels some vague longing for some bit of gear in their carry-on, I have to get up, smash my head on the side of the drop-down video screen, and get out of their way.

Once a woman said, apparently by way of apology for making me stand up 118 times before takeoff, "I just can't seem to get my shit together." And I gave her a glance that said "You had best get your shit together before I get it together for you, and you won't like it."

But the overbooking is the worst thing. You pile into an airport terminal with two hundred other people and everyone looks around with hollow eyes because everyone knows that fifteen people aren't getting on the plane. The suits that deemed overbooking an acceptable procedure ("We're just protecting our profit, slim enough already," they say) should spend a day with a broccoli rubber band twisted around their genitalia and see how they like it.

Flying sucks. There's no good way to put it. Getting to the airport sucks. Checking in sucks. Security sucks. The overbooking lottery sucks. Trying to get on the plane while idiots wrestle with man-killing carry-on bags sucks. Having to stand up and sit down every 39 seconds because the person next to you needs something out of her carry-on bag sucks. Having to listen to self-important yuppies who carry on loud conversations about SUVs, golf clubs, or how they propose to change the world now that they've got their MBAs suck. And there are not words to express the intensity of my hatred for the bozos who sit in front of me and recline their seats, thus eating up half my scant personal space and making it impossible for me to put down my tray table.

It's just a good thing that I like Puerto Vallarta, otherwise there's no telling how hysterical it might have made me.