Thursday March 28th, 2024 5:37AM

The hassles of traveling somewhere by plane

I get on an airplane Thursday to fly to Chicago for a dream sports weekend, and I’d admit I’m a little nervous about it.

I’m not worried about the sports. We’re going to a Cubs game on Friday, the Georgia-Notre Dame game on Saturday and the Falcons season opener against the Bears on Sunday.

The flying itself doesn’t concern me, either. I’m not afraid to fly, even though I don’t understand the science that allows something the size of 10 Greyhound buses to lift off the ground and fly thousands of miles at 600 mph.

“Ain’t nothing to flying,” the great Lewis Grizzard once wrote. “It’s crashing and burning that ought to concern you.”

He has a point, I suppose. If the engine conks out on my Nissan, I can coast safely into the handy emergency lane that the Department of Transportation constructed for just such an occurrence. But there are no emergency lanes at 30,000 feet, and there's really no place to coast safely when you're flying over Brasstown Bald.

I realize airlines, like a lot of businesses, are struggling. Fares are already high, and now airlines charge us an extra fee for daring to actually check our luggage, as if we’d fly to Saskatchewan to go moose hunting for two weeks without so much as a change of underdrawers.

We’ll only be in Chicago and South Bend for a couple of days. We’ll pack light and carry our luggage onto the plane to avoid extra fees. Of course, so will all the other passengers, none of whom want to pay the checked-baggage charge either. I’m convinced there will be more luggage in the passenger compartment than there will be in the cargo hold.

Then there’s the matter of the seat belts. I’m required by law to use a seat belt when operating my car. This seat belt not only wraps around my lap, but also around my shoulder to keep me secured in the event I hit another car.

In the airplane, though, I have to wear a lap belt that is supposed to protect me if we fall 30,000 feet out of the sky and crash into the ground. At least I can use my seat cushion as a flotation device. But exactly what body of water will we crash into between Atlanta and Chicago?

Of course, the hassle really begins at the security checkpoint. As part of the security measures put in place following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the government has limited the amount of liquids that you can carry on to the plane to just three ounces.

The only reason I can surmise for this policy is that the Department of Homeland Security has received credible evidence that ISIS is planning to hijack an airliner with a loaded bottle of Head and Shoulders.

You have to practically undress to go through the checkpoint. I’ll have to put my watch, my keys, my cell phone, my wallet and 68 cents in change in my briefcase for a screener to X-ray. Then I’ll have to take off my shoes and my belt. 

Frankly, I was not wild about taking off my belt. I’ve lost a good bit of weight in the last year. As a result, some of my pants are very loose fitting. I’ll have no choice. But I promise you I’ll walk through the metal detector with my hands holding on firmly to the waistband of my pants.

Terrorists or not, there are some things the screeners have no business inspecting, if you know what I’m saying

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