The ability to fly from Vancouver to Europe in less time than it takes to drive to Nelson is kind of amazing when you take a step back and look at the big picture.
Now take a step forward, crossing the threshold into the reality that are those tainted meat packaging and processing centres we call airports, and I think we can all agree that flying these days is pretty much the worst thing in the history of bad things, ever.
To fly in this day and age is to be degraded as a human being. It's to have your time deliberately wasted, your patience tested, your body invaded and contorted, your internal systems bombarded by pathogens, your possessions lost and shattered into fragments.
I've been bumped from flights. I've had flights cancelled on me. I've been scheduled for layovers that last half a day, only to find out my luggage was lost anyway. I've been pulled aside for random searches that almost made me late for my flight. I've been hit on the head by someone's third piece of oversized carry-on luggage. I've been passed out upon by drunk/exhausted flyers. I've been squished between people simply too large for ever-shrinking airplane seats, on planes that have been reconfigured for quantity over quality. I've had my Leatherman and Swiss Army Knife confiscated, my asthma inhaler disassembled, liquids poured out, my hands swabbed, my body x-rayed with high levels of radiation and stripped naked by visualization technology so good you can actually tell which testicle hangs lower.
I recently flew to Winnipeg for a family function. On the flight out, the stewardess told my wife and I, unasked, that we should have another child because only children "don't do well" — and apparently she knows my daughter is doomed because she's really a Kindergarten teacher who just happened to be working as a stewardess on a Wednesday. To cap it off, she went on the intercom after the flight landed and said something like, "The couple in the fifth row doesn't know if they should have another child? What do you think everybody!"
Did I mention that my in-laws were in the row behind me, and have also expressed an interest in more grandchildren? I was livid.
In the end I kept my mouth shut, but I was seriously tempted to pull her quietly aside on the way out and be mean. I was going to lie to her and tell her that my wife can't physically have any more children and is very distraught about it, and thanks a lot for opening old wounds. This would have accomplished two important things — A) ruining the rest of her day, which she deserved, and B) teaching her a value lesson about boundaries.
On the way back from Winnipeg we were subjected to a flight attendant's very annoying impersonation of a very annoying person that went on far too long to be funny. Then my wife, daughter and I spent the flight separated because we booked on different dates, but they wouldn't put us together in one of the empty front seats because those empty seats are apparently premium in some way even though they were exactly the same size — read: small — as every other seat crammed onto the plane.
Where, I ask, did the dignity go? Do people really want that kind of improv from staff when they travel, or are they putting on shows to distract us from the fact that our planes are going to be held on the tarmac for 40 minutes because a connecting flight is running late?
Flying used to be a big deal, something you got dressed up for. These days most planes are little better than airborne buses, albeit with less head, leg and elbow room. The only good thing about it is the convenience, and even then it's not as convenient as it used to be: arriving three hours early for an international flight is insanity.
Fans of the South Park show will remember the episode about Mr. Garrison's revolutionary "IT" monowheel transportation system, which sexually violates you and makes you look ridiculous but everyone agreed was a "little more comfortable" than flying with the airlines. That show debuted in 2001, and I'd argue that things have only gotten worse since then.
I know security is important and the economics of flying are awful — fuel prices are going up, competition is intense and there's only so much that people will pay to fly. But is this really the future? Can't we do even slightly better than this?
My dream is to one day arrive at an airport, lie down in a coffin-like container that immediately knocks me unconscious with some sort of gas or simple injection while someone else carefully packs my bags into a compartment beneath me to ensure we're going to the same place. Unconscious people can't set their explosive underwear on fire, so you arrive half an hour before your flight instead of wasting half a day going through security.
Once comatose, my unit will be dropped onto a conveyer and loaded onto a more fuel efficient windowless plane where myself and other unconscious passengers are stacked like bricks for the duration flight. At the end of the line we're revived in a lounge that serves cold beer and pretzels, and our numbers are called one by one to go through customs.
No crying babies, no coughing neighbours, no small talk with people you'll never see again, no broken screens/satellite systems, no redundant and half-assed safety briefings in French and English, and, most important, no more annoying stewardess that take way too much interest in my reproductive life.
