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So I'm not flying much domestically these days.
And wouldn't you know, last time I checked into O'Hare I joked to my wife that it was payback time, and I would be getting mine.
In prior years, it took the form of lighters that were OK to bring to a wedding in NY, but not OK to bring back and other such cockamamie. Little things. Fine. So the rules were inconsistent -- no surprise there. Annoying, but I could move on.
But this time I was held up for 40 minutes while they completely disassembled my carry-on shoulder bag, the one I've had for about 8 years, the one I've always flown with, and the one that probably sat in the closet untouched since my last flight. Holy christ, whatever for? I mean what could it possibly take to inspect whatever it was about the bag that queered them? It actually got sent into some secondary roll-in plastique detector or whatever. As I'm getting the third degree, I'm just chuckling, you know, send good vibes, all that business. But that doesn't help me one bit. And after literally slicing the bag to find, well, more nylon and foam I was told by THREE different clowns in the circus "This must be one of the new bags" and was just handed it back, because hey, that suffices to explain what just happened.
No shit. Those deadly "new" bags. And wouldn't you just know it, I laughed and tried to explain that not only was it not a "new bag" and, last I checked, "new bags" weren't being made of plastique/explosive shampoo, but in their whole mess they missed a pair of fly-tying scissors I neglected to unpack from my last trip (which were OK at the time, natch) but which were now exposed thanks to their vandalism.
Guess who got to miss his flight?
So up yours, Mr. Just-Send-Out-The-Happy-Vibes.
