If you travel with any frequency you inevitably have “stories.”  You like to get together with a few other frequent travelers and exchange, what are essentially,war stories. If you have traveled recently, you will know that traveling is like a contact sport now. Or rather, it is a combat sport. Let’s review.

Getting through security is one of the biggest hassles and displays of idiocy there is. I hate to be so blunt but it is true.  Take off your shoes? Don’t take off your shoes? Bags scanned that have soda bottles in them despite everyone knowing you can’t take that with you through security. Then you have the random woman arguing with TSA over whether her yogurt, that she just bought before the security gate, counts as liquid. Just as she is about to shriek, she decides to swallow the yogurt in one big gulp. That act seems to qualify yogurt as liquid.  I, and thousands of others, have gone through the TSA Pre Check screening process and payment so that we can avoid such hassles.  Yet, the TSA Pre Screen personnel sometimes seem to be in slow mode. You can’t win.

Then you get to your gate, where random people start lining up an hour before boarding.  such acts make me think of REM’s song “What’s the Frequency Kenneth.”  I am not too sure why that song pops into my head other than it is just random enough. Then people start elbowing each other to get their bags into the overhead compartments I have been on 12 flights the last 6 weeks. And on every single one of them, a passenger was near mental breakdown  status due to the fact that they felt that their “constitutional” right to overhead space had been violated.  Sure, its not a constitutional amendment. However, I wouldn’t’ be surprised if someone didn’t add to our second amendment (you know the one that asserts “the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed”) the right to overhead space.  Oh my, the number of lawsuits that would happen!

As it is, I have seen a fair share of fights on flights over that space.  A woman recently tried to get my medium-sized backpack moved out of the overhead space so that she could try to fit her clearly non carry-on sized luggage. I was outraged. The funny (or is it sad) part of that interaction, it wasn’t even me that she fought with and I didn’t even say a word. The crazy woman fought with an off-duty flight attendant over it.  Is all this worth the rising blood pressure in people’s bodies? I tried to keep zen on the flight and watched the latest bloody rampage that occurred on the television show Blacklist.

Now, on my last flight after all the chaos on the plane we landed safely, quietly and not even that far behind schedule. Got to be glad for the small wins life. Of course,  we waited on the tarmac for a bit while airport personnel chased a loose dog. And why not? It’s a free for all out there and dogs might as well get in on the act. And thus, travel is all about the witches and dogs.  Oh I forgot to talk about the witches…