Although most aspects to our recent trip to five European countries remain the highlight of all our travels, it’s good to be back. International travel can be stressful. I write this as a legitimate concern, not as one wishing to brag about all the places we’ve been. Only since retirement (mine) have we taken long trips, and unlike many others around us, we spend our money on trips, not fancy cars or houses.
That said, let me mention that the Trujillo-as-Terrorist factor this time was diminished. In 2003, I wrote a column titled “Do I look like a terrorist?” an honest question wrought by the constant delaying, prodding, poking, pummeling, patting, probing and pinching by airport personnel.
I mentioned then that such closeness, when they ran a wand over me, led me to wonder whether the Transportation Authority worker was about to give me a manicure, trim my mustache, kiss my cheek or at least blow into my ear. That was years ago. Fortunately, workers didn’t arrest the entire Highlands crew on our arrival in Miami from Spain, when one student, seeing me being checked over, hollered, “Hey, Art, where’d you hide the bomb?”
Puh-leeze, one never jokes around airport security.
This year’s crawls through airport security weren’t quite so bad. Nevertheless, when travelling with family, I don’t know why if any one of us is singled out for further review, it’ll be me (or, as my English teacher would say, “It’ll be I.”)
Most readers are doubtless familiar with the travel routine: no liquid in bottles more than four ounces, no lipstick, no sharp objects such as nail files or clippers, no pocket knives, no cigarette lighters; remove thy shoes, belts, watches, rings; remove your laptop computer from the case, etc.
We went through passport and security inspection, sometimes twice, in several places: Albuquerque, Minneapolis, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Zurich and Minneapolis again.
Going overseas wasn’t as discomfiting as coming back was. Having arrived in Minneapolis from Amsterdam at 5 p.m., the entire planeload was zonked, as our biological clocks were reading 1 a.m. the following day, Amsterdam being seven hours later than Minneapolis. The eight-hour trip was extended another 45 minutes, after the pilot announced he was waiting for two people to join the flight.
Had he meant extra pilots? No, he announced that two regular passengers, “with connections,” were yet to arrive. Most of us assumed the connections referred to catching other planes in distant climes, but apparently the connections were political.
At 6 p.m. Minnesota time (1 p.m. the following morning our time), we were feted to an hours-long passport inspection at MSP. Apparently other planes had landed at the same time, creating lines of mammoth proportions. Several pilgrims misinterpreted a visible-too-late, misspelled sign that read: “No electonics.” Accordingly, dozens stepped out of that line to find another.
“No electonics” apparently meant that cell phones, pagers and computers merely needed to be turned off. But those in line must have inferred it meant that anyone with anything electonic needed to find another line.
Doesn’t everybody on the planet have a cell phone and a laptop?
The sign could have been clearer, and I sympathize with those who lost their equity in line, much like conducting business with some government offices.
Though the MSP airport was just starting to buzz, around 7 p.m. their time, all of us still needed to retrieve our luggage, run it through the conveyer belt, swear that “nobody to our knowledge put anything into our bags,” and explain why we’d traveled overseas anyway.
“We were in Denmark for the wedding of our oldest son and for a cruise down the Rhine.” Wanna see some pictures?
Actually, we forewent the desire to put on a slide show, realizing there is no humor in these places. But still, Madam Security Questioner ordered me to “step over to that kiosk, please, sir,” where I needed to explain in greater detail where we’d been and what we’d brought along.
We provided more information than we’d expected, detailing every city we’d visited, which items we chose not to buy – to avoid having to declare them and pay extra.
In spite of what I thought was a succinct recounting of our business in western Europe, the inquisitor gave that I-don’t-really-believe-you look, but nevertheless dispatched me.
So, we made it through an 18-day trip that took us through many cities and countless castles and cathedrals and that required several modes of transportation: planes, trains and automobiles, in addition to subways, boats, taxis and foot power.
Except for the airport security ordeal, the trip went on without a hitch or glitch. But for a minute while being herded through the Minneapolis airport, I wondered how the computers – if they’re even used to randomly select people to examine closely – seem always to choose me.
But wait. We saw an elderly woman being subjected to the same pinching, prodding, etc. She looked innocuous and could have passed for that little lady in the Wendy’s “where’s the beef?” commercial of the ’80s. Could she have been toting an Uzi?
Was she singled out to convince others that the Transportation Safety Administration doesn’t play favorites? Was it to show that even people without facial foliage get inspected as well?
Regardless, you TSA employees, on one of these trips I’d like get through without setting off alarms.
Meanwhile, I keep wondering: Why me? Do I look like a terrorist?