I’m back in New York now. (Spring break.) I’ll be going to Lunacon this coming weekend, but I’m pretty much free during the week, so if anyone else is free and wants to hang out, drop me a line.
On my flight from L.A. to Chicago, aside from a brief interlude in which I watched the in-flight movie Night at the Museum (which was actually better than I was expecting), I spent the whole time talking to the young woman (Polly) sitting next to me. She had one of the those little dogs you carry around in a purse. The dog never moved or made a peep. Polly said that on the flight out she’d had the purse unzipped. A flight attendant had come by and told Polly to zip up the purse, so Polly zipped it up half way, thinking this would be sufficient. It wasn’t. The flight attendant appeared again and said that Polly was now facing federal felony charges for disobeying the staff in flight. When the plane landed, Polly was taken into police custody. She spent a long time explaining — contrary to what the police had been told — that no, the dog had not run amock in the cabin, and that no, she had not refused to obey the repeated orders of every member of flight crew. She was eventually released. Ah, the joys of modern air travel.
And if you think it’s bad for U.S. citizens, just try dealing with it if you’re from another country. My British friend Adam says that every time he enters the U.S. he has to face a string of interrogators who each grill him about whether he’s ever been to Missouri. He tells them, “No, I haven’t. I’ve never even heard of it.” I recently picked him up at the airport, and he related how the interrogator had asked him, “If you’re in the U.S. to go to school, then why did you leave for one week to go to Europe?,” as if to say, “Gotcha!” Adam explained, “I went to visit my girlfriend for Valentine’s Day.” “Hmmm,” said the interrogator, as if to say, “Very suspicious,” and stamped Adam’s papers with a “Probably a terrorist/Full cavity search” sort of stamp. Adam says that getting into the U.S. these days is such a nightmare that more and more people from abroad who are invited to come speak here simply refuse.
Leave a Reply