A LONG WAY FROM MANY PLACES

Airports

A soul in tension that’s learning to fly/Condition grounded, but determined to try/Can’t keep my eyes from the circling skies/Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earthbound misfit, I – Pink Floyd, “Learning to Fly”

Broaching bureaucratic bafflegab with puffed-up, pimply little popinjays with fancy epaulettes on their uniforms or with similar, sterner authoritarian figures whose first language isn’t English is beyond futile; pointless semantics, even though liquids and gels are very different from pastes, lotions and ointments. Just bag it in order to move forward with ongoing clarity.

Flying ignites my inherent misanthropy. I won’t inflame that statement with any snotty remarks about body mass, armrests and manners. No, this is about raising cabin pressure, pushing the envelope of perceived entitlement with a Tetris stack of carry-on worthy of an employed bearer. How did it all get beyond the gate and the jetway, let alone past security (not to be confused with a Peter Gabriel album)?

Canada’s airport security agency is known by the acronym CATSA. I think of it as CATSASS. TSA is the American one and that sounds like a Canadian income tax form, one of those slips you’re missing when you file. The European Union’s open borders Schengen Area is an entirely different kettle of monkeys. Time is your enemy should you be travelling with a Canadian passport and intent on making a tight connection through Brussels: a stifling bureaucracy exists outside of its dimension. Proud to say I’d never been fingerprinted before. Thank you, Osama bin Laden, your legacy endures.

Airport security screenings are different the world over. In Canada they’re like a legacy family recipe no ever thought to write down. Federal regulations somehow receive an interpretive twist between provinces, cities and airports; regional attitude and size are factors. What amuses me is the inconsistent application of stern standards at the same airport on a different day.

Unheeded warnings, I thought I’d thought of everything…

My personal carry-on tote is a blue nylon knapsack that fits beneath the seat in front of mine. It always contains a pouch of wet wipes because airplane cabins rate with public toilets for cleanliness. A sandwich baggie of Kleenex pairs nicely with the wipes because there’s some sort of unnatural relationship between canned air and the viscous fluid sloshing around in my head. There’s a book, always a book, but never a hardcover, they weigh too much. The other standard item is a miniature iPad. Its operating system is MS-DOS. The only application that still functions is Boy Howdy Solitaire (the “hard” levels of Forty Thieves and Spider are going to be the death of me). This electronic item once required its own grey tub at a security checkpoint. These days it’s ignored; it might as well be a brass telegraph key. Or it was until I turned up at Flughafen Wien to board an Austrian Airlines flight to Brussels.

The woman who unpacked my knapsack at security was tall. I wasn’t surprised, everybody on the streets of Vienna was taller than me. She was very attractive and her grey uniform added a certain je ne sais Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS quoi. She was an archeologist, examining my iPad mini like the relic it is. I tried to explain: “In Canada, nobody cares about…” And for once my faulty oral filter was tripped, mouth flange, because I didn’t ask her if, perhaps, I deserved some punishment? I wasn’t dying for it, more like wishing and hoping. Besides, she was okay with my ankle boots.

Trips are about arrival and departure and the generally happy space in between. Winter travel skews more fraught, you need proper footwear to walk the unguided walk. I favour shoes by Clarks. And I think the coolest shoes ever created are desert boots. I have three pairs. My red suede ones are just beyond. I have a winter pair too, rough brown leather, well-oiled and lined in a houndstooth pattern. “Tundra” boots, I guess. They passed muster in Vienna; I didn’t have to undo the red double-knotted laces to remove them. Canada was another story: CATSASS consternation.

Edmonton International Airport (YEG) is a long way from many places. No hub. Ann and I decided to segment our journey to Vienna. We spent a couple of nights in Montreal with my sister and her husband before the four us carried on to the Continent. For our return trip I booked a night’s stay for us at Montreal’s in-terminal hotel, a Marriot (I still think of YUL as “Dorval” and not Trudeau). We did this for the benefit of our backs and knees and because we’ve learned that we both might become a little tetchy when the hours between cigarettes reach double digits. (Aside: I’m convinced air rage incidents would be halved if smokers could conveniently light up inside airports. I mean, emotional support ratdogs and their dangerously fragile shepherds are granted better facilities, piss pads, Astroturf and rubber rooms. Fuck me.)

There’s no sensation to compare to this…

My Clarks tundra boots were an issue departing Edmonton. I was ordered to remove them, but at least the floor was dry. Nobody remarked on my boots in Montreal en route to Europe. That indifference, that hunky doriness, that sensible laissez-faire attitude proved to be a pop-up, gatecrasher oversight or a CATSASS rookie mistake. Flying home from Montreal to Edmonton my winter boots in a winter country at winter’s onset were suspect this time. I took my boots off. They’d be maybe four or five grey tubs behind the knapsack carrying my pathetic iPad mini. And my belt. I couldn’t hang myself then and there. At least the floor was dry.

"Ooh, they were never as good after Syd flipped out." "They're a non-entity sans Roger." A bit Floyd formulaic perhaps, but still worthy of headphones and hashish.

Dispatches from the Crooked 9 has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of everything since 2013. Sunset Oasis Confidential is still out there languishing in multiple formats. Visit my companion site www.megeoff.com for links to your preferred retailer. Of Course You Did is still in print. Collect the set!