Once more I find myself on a plane. I think I’ve actually flown more this year than ever before but I’m by no means a jetsetter. This morning I bumped into Paul from modaco.com at the gate. I’d just been asked by a security guy if I was “First Class or Business”. My reply caused him to guide me away from the incredibly short queue to a rather longer, more snake-like one.
This flight, if I’m to count the hops we made on our honeymoon, is my 10th this year. Now if someone said that exact phrase to me a couple of years ago I would have imagined their life to be glamorous and rather posh. The reality is somewhat different and I still can’t quite figure out how Emily does this as her job every week.
10 flights unfortunately doesn’t mean 10 different holidays. Getting to one destination in the USA sometimes means two or even three connecting flights. The flight today called for a 4.30AM alarm followed by a 2 hour drive down to Heathrow. Doing this just once or twice a year is enough for me however Emily does this as a job. Nightmare. I couldn’t do shifts like that any more. The last time I did any kind of shift work was at Safeway (now Morrisons) and then I mostly turned drunk or half asleep. I used to go to a local nightclub where my mate was a manager. He’d always let us have a few drinks after it closed at 2AM and we’d usually all get dropped off at home around 4AM. Obviously getting up at 6 to go back to work didn’t bode well although I’ll confess that the first few hours of the shift went remarkably quickly.
So back to today anyway. The security on US-bound flights is extremely tight. No liquids, no shoes, questions, questions and yet more questions. I don’t have a problem with all this of course but there is one certain part of the security process that shocked me this morning.
We were going through the security screening, y’know, shoes off, coins out, keys out, belt off then that walk through the scanner. But then some guy called me over and proceeded to pad me down. I had to stand with my arms stretched out to the side but suddenly … suddenly ….. well, all I can say is that there was definite “cupping”. I figured that it surely must be part of the check and for some strange reason I even thanked him! Surely that’s wrong though!?
I mean, firstly they’ve got to change the rules a bit – these sort of checks should be performed by sexy ladies in revealing security uniforms, not by some bloke who winks at you. Ugghhh…. It’s wrong on so many levels… I feel unclean… Where’s the shower? ;)