My View For Awhile: Homeward

I’ve had enough heat for the time being.  Time to go.


At the airport TSA gave my bag their special attention (as I looked on) with all manner of care for restoring some decent order… not.   Thanks for that.

The airport here doesn’t have a club for my usual airline so I’m enjoying the sights and sounds of the concourse.   Always fun, right?


Now I get to watch my bag tracker and wonder where it’ll go this time.

Will Delta get it right today?

UPDATE

Huzzah!

My bag was loaded on the same flight I’m on!

So we begin the 3 hour flight…

UPDATE

I am happy to report that my bag is on the same flight that I am on.  That’s a good start to the last leg.

I don’t know about the “service dog” thing in the cabin.  I see this pretty frequently now and, so far, there haven’t been any complications.  I only hope that the crew washes their hands after petting them and before starting beverage service.

The jury is out.

And do people really need to treat airplanes as if they were their bathrooms?   


Please people – if you don’t have socks keep your shoes on.   Is that too much for you to grasp?

Grrr.

It’ll be over soon.

UPDATE

I guess I should change this from draft to publish.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in On the road, What Fr. Z is up to. Bookmark the permalink.

16 Comments

  1. GrumpyYoungMan says:

    Father, I’m in the air as we speak…err…type. I’d like to think of dealing with the TSA as a form of penance, but for me it’s usually just a near occasion of sin.

    Safe travels to you and your luggage. Glad to hear you’re on the same plane this time around.

  2. Nan says:

    When I went to the Holy Land, the worst mess was in first class. Those of us in sewerage picked up after ourselves.

  3. iPadre says:

    Travel has become a real nuisance. God bless and keep you safe.

  4. Cafea Fruor says:

    It’s still better than the stuff I see while riding the city bus. No animals yet–except for a seeing-eye dog, but what I’ve seen is convincing me that people are increasingly losing any sense of proper public decorum. In my bus travels, I’ve seen people eat food (soup, even!), clip their nails (and leave the clippings on the floor), do their makeup (with that awful powdered stuff that everyone nearby gets to breathe in), put their feet all over the seats, drip water all over the seats from umbrellas, “sing” (questionable) out loud with the music piping into their headphones, play their “music” (again, questionable) without headphones for everyone to hear, carry on loud cell phone conversations about such topics as bodily functions and stuff I don’t have a security clearance to hear, grab reserved handicapped seating as an elderly person is getting on the bus and needs it, etc. It’s a little depressing.

  5. hwriggles4 says:

    Cafes fruor et. al:

    Good observation. I notice when I fly (mostly weekends) that people (young, old, male, female) are often dressed like college kids during finals week. Nothing matches, baseball caps, sweat pants, pajamas, leggings (sorry ladies – leggings aren’t pants), flip flops, etc. My mother would not let me leave the house, but I will admit to flying sometimes in a t-shirt and decent shorts with socks (i was an 80s kid, so i did wear boat shoes without socks) and shoes on a weekend in the summer.

    I do notice when I am dressed a little more decent (i.e. button down, khakis or Dockers, black shoes or even golf shirt with well kept jeans – I am normally dressed this way when I fly) I do get treated better by flight crews, ticket agents, and even some passengers. If I fly on a Monday morning, I like to be dressed decently because there’s always people traveling to make business meetings, and some will return home that evening. On these days, quite a few ladies (young and old) are wearing dresses, and the men (young and old) are in business attire – even a golf shirt with a company logo and khakis is acceptable. I am glad these travelers take the time in advance to prepare.

    I appreciate priests who wear their roman collars on an airplane. Recently, I ran into our auxiliary bishop at the airport, and he was in his clerics – including the cross with the chain.

  6. Ellen says:

    I’ve only flown once. I didn’t like it very much although we got there with no problems. I hate the TSA scan, and I hate all the waiting, waiting, waiting.

  7. SKAY says:

    Cafea Fruor said:

    “It’s a little depressing. ”
    I agree. The behavior described really is just rude.
    There used to be things called common courtesy and manners-even on buses.

  8. Cafea Fruor says:

    SKAY:

    At least there are a few shining moments in the murk. Every once in a while, I do see someone give up a seat for someone who needs it. Or I recently saw someone help an elderly person off the bus. Or there’s the well-dressed (suit, tie, hat, and pocket square!!) 20-something guy on my morning bus who’s always doing something for someone, like picking up a hat I’d dropped once, or offering his seat to someone in need, and calls everyone sir and ma’am–and he acts that way whether or not his wife is with him that day. We need more people like that.

    It’s sad that those moments are rare, but it does give me a little hope.

  9. Charles E Flynn says:

    And not just any socks:

    Why You Should Wear Compression Socks on Your Next Flight , by Deanne Revel, for Travel Channel.

    You might want to ignore this part:

    “But as cute as they can be, if, like me, you don’t like wearing them all the time, just toss a pair in your carry-on and change on the plane.”

  10. corm_corm says:

    I’m not sure you’d ‘enjoy’ a pilgrimage to St Patrick’s Purgatory, Lough Derg Ireland, Father. For three days you’re required to pray the rosary, walking around the island in your bare feet!

  11. jaykay says:

    Apples and oranges, corm_corm. On Lough Derg, everybody’s doin’ it (doin’ it, doin’it… x 3 days). It’s expected, whereas on flights – not so much. D.G. As a daily train commuter, I’m frequently assaulted by peoples’ pungent food choices, thinking especially of the “gentleman” who used bring a selection of Indian tid-bits on as his breakfast, no less, and devour them coram populo with no regard to his fellow commuters’ wellbeing. Now, I like Indian food – but not vicariously at 7.20 a.m. I can only imagine the subsequent aroma in his workplace…

  12. graytown says:

    How to dress on an aircraft ?
    As if you are going to evacuate a burning, crumpled up fuselage.
    A sturdy pair of shoes – not barefoot or flip flops.
    Long pants – not shorts

  13. JonPatrick says:

    The TSA is like going to an Ordinary Form Mass at a parish not your own – you might be pleasantly surprised or it might be an experience from Hell. Every airport and crew seems to be different. Departing from O’Hare Chicago yesterday was relatively painless except when I committed the cardinal sin of handing the grumpy agent 3 boarding passes and ID’s instead of having everyone hand in their own.

    In general we found people in the Midwest generally better behaved that back home in the Northeast although there are always exceptions of course. The young couple from Wisconsin who sat next to me on the plane who called me “sir” when they addressed me and offered me candy come to mind.

    What you see a lot of everywhere are people so glued to their devices that they are walking around oblivious to what is going on around them. Hope that there are no open manholes on the sidewalk.

  14. Mary Ann says:

    ;) John Candy as Del Griffith in John Hughes’ “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles”—“…my dogs are barking today!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-fFM7DW17g

Comments are closed.