Dave's Fiction Warehouse

Busy day at PHL I t's futile and tiresome to complain about the wretched state of air travel in America. You might as well complain about the law of gravity. But since our flight out of Philadelphia appears to be canceled, and wireless Internet access is free here on the weekends, allow me to hold forth for a few paragraphs. When you drive around a big city, nothing inspires sorrow and rage quite so much as the sight of all the taillights in front of you suddenly lighting up. It means that traffic will soon slow to a full stop, and that whatever plans you had at the moment must now be reconsidered.  You get a similar feeling in an airport, when you arrive three hours early for your flight, and clear security without difficulty, and enjoy a nice lunch in a far concourse, and at last wander down to your departure gate to find a long line has formed. The line keeps getting longer because it's not moving. It's not moving because the two women at the gate are powerless to do any...

I curse the airlines' draconian ban on weapons every time I see some idiot blocking the aisle while trying to hoist a steamer trunk into or out of the overhead bins. If there's ever a time the use of deadly force is fully justified, this is it. I mean, when it doesn't cost anything to check a freaking bag, except for maybe 10 minutes at the end of the trip, why try to cram everything you own into a soft-sided footlocker and pretend it's not a major inconvenience for the rest of us? I guarantee, the few minutes you save by skirting baggage claim will be borne by everyone else forced to wait while you assess the various angles, pressure points and contortions necessary to get your overfilled bag and your lard ass out of the way. Oh, and don't forget your precious iBook, briefcase, James Patterson novel and cloth carryall filled with crap you couldn't do without at the duty-free shop. Why not bring an inflatable kayak too? It's just one more maddening obstacle ...