By the time they reached my house in the return trip, they had been awake 23 hours (24 by the time they went to bed _ we didn't visit long!) and they were exhausted. The one major story they had to tell was about their horrible airport experience at Newark, NJ. three or four hours there, I forget which _ the shuttle train between terminals broke down. Ordinarily one merely steps aboard through one of several doors, and there are no lines; but since the train was broken, folk bottlenecked in shoving crowds going in and out. They finally walked _ with all their baggage in hand; I guess that's why it's called LUGgage. _ to the next terminal, arriving narrowingly in time to avoid missing a flight.
This is a family of four _ two 40-something audlts, a 15-year-old guy and an infant-in-arms (well, he's 1 1/2 years, but he was tired and cranky, *s*). The security lines were humongous. Airport personnel tried to separate out those whose flights left soonest, but chaos prevailed. Additionally, they had the ill-luck to be chosen to have all their bagge examined and X-rayed.
Since these four were coming into this country from elsewhere, they had to go through customs _ where, again, the lines were humongous.
In Europe, my daughter said, "we weren't treated as potential criminals. Everything went very smoothly and quickly. And when they saw you had a baby, they waved you to the front of the line." Tough on the rest of the folk, I guess, but she appreciated it.
Now, I've just read the following. What in heaven's name are folk thinking of!!
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By Daniel Wright, Patently Silly
posted: 12 August 2007 01:12 pm ET
[patent #: US 6970105. issued 11/29-2005]In these days of airline travel, every passenger is a potential terrorist, and you must sacrifice good dental hygiene to prove you're not. There must be a better solution to airlne safety than confiscating everybody's toothpaste, right? What if the Transportation Security Administration were to give, instead of just taking away? Sounds good, but what if what they gave you was a collar equipped with a biosensor and a syringe?:
"The system is designed in a manner that the emotional conditions of the passengers are detected and, in case of change of such conditions, the plane personnel is informed so as to intervene promptly on the related passenger... the system referred to can deliver to the evil minded person a substance like a narcotic or a strong tranquilizer adapted to neutralize the offensive capability thereof"
Take that, "evil minded person!" But there are positives for the virtuous traveller as well. Now, if your Ambien gets confiscated at the gate, all you need to do is experience an "emotional condition change" and that fourteen hour flight to Tokyo will be over before you know it. Time for me to get to work on my new book, Method Acting for the Business Traveller.
Hey, wait a minute. If stewardesses had the ability to knock everyone in the cabin unconscious, wouldn't that mean that instead of smuggling weapons onboard the plane, terrorists would just have to go to flight attendant school?
A schematic of the proposed device that delivers a shot of a tranquilizer to the offending passenger.
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Note of explanation: My elder daughter lives in California, the greater LA area, but she and the others flew from Phoenix rather than from LA because the middle two sons were to stay with their grandmother in a small town in Arizona's mountains.
earsz
2 Comments
The thing with the collar is really scary. Thank god its only some wackadoo patent, and not something that will actually be implemented -- at least, I can't imagine that something like this would actually be implemented.
An example :
and i quote... "The 1984 issue of Clinical Toxicology of Commercial Products lists fluoride as more poisonous than lead and just slightly less poisonous than arsenic. It has been used as a pesticide for mice, rats and other small pests. A 10-pound infant could be killed by 1/100 of an ounce and a 100-pound adult could be killed by 1/10 of an ounce of fluoride. The Akron Regional Poison Center indicates that a 7-ounce tube of toothpaste contains 199 mg. of fluoride, more than enough to kill a 25-pound child." (Go google fluoride poison for zillions of sites.)
So... 200 people on a 747, all armed with toothpaste, could take out the pilots easilly! lol
On a slightly more serious note... we ask our kids to use this stuff every day. It's even added to our water in certain countries. Others ban it outright! Another side effect is alledged IQ reduction. Which in turn, might explain how the idea to remove toothpaste from people boarding planes, was passed in the first place.
Hey you know AdGuy always gets the last word! ;)