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Message-ID: <1f1aj2z.1rk6me119qvq0qN%jwgh@earthlink.net>
Subject: My return to the airport!
From: "Jacob W. Haller" <jwgh at earthlink.net>
Date: Mon, 15 Oct 2001 03:29:34 GMT

As is my usual habit, I took a cab to the airport. As we rounded the curve towards the airport I saw an airplane on the ground. This was followed almost instantaneously by a mental image of it blowing up. Apparently, I have not yet fully recovered from watching 300,000 hours of watching plans explode on network television in the past month.

Anyway, I got to the airport and encountered the new security provisions. One was that I had to get a boarding pass before going through the security gate. That seemed reasonable. Another was that I had to take my laptop out of my satchel and put it through the metal detector separately from the rest of my carry-on stuff. I'm not sure what this was intended to accomplish; either way, I'm guessing my laptop (which has a metal case) basically looked like a big black rectangle.

Also, there were a couple of soldiers (National Guard I assume) hanging around. But I almost didn't see them because they were wearing camouflage which makes you nearly invisible!

Eventually I got on the plane and we took off. Takeoff was really shaky and rough. After we were in the air the captain came on the air and said something along the lines of that something mechanical had broken which is why takeoff was rough, but he had turned whatever it was off and it shouldn't cause any further problems so we shouldn't worry. Also, they gave me several packets of that generic snack stuff they give you now that they don't give you peanuts any more.

We landed without incident. The National Guard guys at BWI had much bigger guns than the ones at T.F. Green.

It was time for me to take a cab to my hotel. BWI was crowded as usual. After I got into a cab, the cabbie pulled out behind a woman who was trying to back into a parking space, so he was basically blocking her. While he was pondering this situation a bus pulled up behind him, blocking him in, and someone who appeared to be an airport employee approached the cab and started yelling at my cabbie. After a few minutes things were rearranged so nobody was blocked any more, so my cabbie rolled down the passenger-side window and yelled back at the employee. "HEY! FUCK YOU!" he said. The employee shouted back at him, "NO, YOU WERE WRONG, MAN! YOU WERE WRONG!" They continued to shout at each other for a bit. Then the employee said, "OH YEAH? WELL WHY DON'T YOU COME OVER HERE AND SAY THAT?" and the cabbie said "ALL RIGHT!" and opened the door and left the car to go over and shout at the other guy from a much closer distance.

At this point I decided I might as well take a different cab, so I left the cab and started walking back over to the taxi station. Then I remembered that one of my bags was in the trunk of the cab. So I went back.

By now the cabbie had gotten back in the cab and, not noticing that I had left, had started to drive away. Fortunately I was able to stop him before he got too far. He apologized, saying, "I'm sorry, but he was yelling at me, calling me motherfucker. I don't like that. He shouldn't do that." I was noncommittal. He then quizzed me as to my views on the invasion of Afghanistan. Finally we arrived at my hotel, where I checked in without incident and went to bed.

The flight back to Providence went much more smoothly. I go back again next month.

-jwgh

-- 
"Perhaps if there were an alt.postal-workers.recovery group (and it got
used), then fewer postal workers would go postal."
          - David M. Hungerford III, alt.tech-support.recovery 2/6/97

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