Planes, Trains, and the $9.25 Ham Sandwich

There are few things in this world that are as loathsome as navigating airports. Ariports are nexus points of demonic energy where gremlins, hobgoblins, and really slow people congregate. It is at these points where their evil powers are their stongest, and these dark beings use them to delay flights, institute random security policies and empty the paper towel dispensers in the restrooms. When the Apocaylpse comes, it will be via flight 98 from London/Heathrow and will be delayed for 90 minutes while the mechanics try to figure out what some light means.

Here are some examples of demonic work that I have observed:

• You can't bring a bottle of water/juice/coke through security. The diligent TSA demons will notice this and assault you with cold tater tots if you try. What you'll need to do is go through security and then apply for a 2nd mortgage to finance your beverage. At last check, a bottle of water is between $3 & $4. They use the money from these sales to fund the clearcutting of the rainforest and to stifle research into the cure for childhood diabetes.


• Depending on the airport, you may or may not need to show your boarding pass to the person manning the metal detector. Keep in mind, that at the beginning of the Shining-esque maze that you entered to get to the metal detector, you showed both your ID and boarding pass to the TSA hobgoblin. While there is a chance that after inspection of said documents you were comically transported to a paralell universe and replaced with a militant jihaadist, I believe this chance to be fairly low.


• You must remove your laptop from its case and place it in its own bin. Allegedly, this is to prevent the laptop from blocking view of a cleverly hidden gigaton nuclear device in your laptop bag. Since laptops have embedded X-Ray jamming devices, it is imparative that we remove them from the case. Hopefully, nobody will ever think of just hiding the doomsday device in the bottom half of the laptop, underneath the X-Ray shield. That would be bad. Oh crap.......


• To take advantage of the fact that most people assume (and some of the more evil demons insist) that you can't bring food through security, most of the dining establishments in the airport have consulted with their enslaving entities and have decided to fairly price their items. This has resulted in such wonderful treats as the $9.25 ham sandwich. This ham sandwich does not sing, dance or play a mean right wing for your local hockey team. It's just a sandwich. I deconstructed the sandwich to see if there was some hidden prize or secret ingredient that would justify the price. Maybe if it came with a Booster Gold decoder ring or had a thin layer of childhood dreams, it would be worth it. To my suprise, it didn't even include mayo.


• Your flight is always leaving from gate 97E, which is approximately 4 nautical miles past your actual destination. You have to walk 637 miles through a mob of people that all are stunned that they are in an airport and have stopped to look around and figure out where they are. While making the journey to your gate, you may see people waiting at other gates and wonder why you couldn't be on one of those flights. Do not be fooled. Those people are either actors making you think that there are actually flights coming into those gates or they are lesser demons that are travelling to Akron, OH or Selena, KS.


• You can't smoke in airports. This is not due to any health issues, don't let them fool you with that. This is because the major demonic entities at Phillip-Morris like to witness the power they wield by watching people go through security 26 times while waiting for a flight that will never actually arrive. Their minion bretheren at TSA like to mark smokers with several scribbles on their ticket so that when they arrive at the gate to get on their airplane (which will promptly sit on the runway until the 2012 Olympics), the attendants can identify them as enslaved souls and mock them quitely.


• At the airport, there are any number of electronic devices running. TVs with CNN telling you who to vote for, flight displays, electric chairs, etc. However there are only two power receptacles in the entire airport that you can use to charge your iPod. This is done so that the people manning the security camera monitors can place bets on which person will win the ensuing battle royal over the plugs.


• After you arrive at your destination, the captain of your plane will inform you of the baggage claim area that your luggage will NOT be at. This is commonly mistaken for which claim area your baggage WILL be at. They do this to see how long people will stand in front of one conveyor belt before actually walking over and checking the other one where the bag that looks just like theirs has been sitting for 45 minutes.