Paul Blart, Baggage Cop

There is nothing that gets the creative blogging juices going early in the morning like airport "security."

Notice, I use quotes around the key word here. TSA is SECURITY without the quotes. No, here I'm referring to the fine people with some company called C2 Flight services (or something along those lines). These brave men and women check your I'd against your boarding pass just so that a TSA Screening Agent can do it again 50ft later.

These last line of defense against the terrorists decided that they are going to be the ones to enforce the airlines rules allowing "only one carry-on item and one personal item". Well that's just great how is it that on the flight down via both Reagan National in DC and LaGuardia in NY not one person including TSA and airline gate agents said peep one about Mrs. Bloggerman and I carrying a SMALL extra bag because we made it fit under our seat without taking up any extra space in the bins above.

But today was not our day as Inigo Montoya (you killed my father now prepare to die) decided that he was going to be the one to do the dirty job of telling me I had too many bags. Bad idea. To quote Tweety Bird "He don't know me vewy well do he?".

Well several tense minutes, a supervisor, an idiotic Delta flight waitress putting in her two cents, and finally two TSA agents comming in to mediate we finally got on the tram to the terminal. While riding with the two TSA agents we were told that many travelers coming to their checkpoint complain about this company.

The only thing that was missing was three campus police officers throwing me to the ground and yours truly screaming "don't tase me bro!". Fortunately we got the hell out of Tampa and found are way to Atlanta where things got much better. Instead of a full flight with no overhead room, we got a near empty flight that had a change of planes to one with in seat tv screens and a separation from the wife by four whole rows. Better then first class (well almost).

Finally one more thing I want to pontificate about regarding today's air travel experience. I had a few moments of zen in the forward lavatory this morning and noticed the wood floor which is quite a departure from the drab blue carpeting in the rest of the aircraft. Why not do an entire aircraft in wood floors? They certainly spruce up (no pun intended) the cabin, plus spills are easier to clean up. So why not? I put this question to Richard Anderson, Delta's CEO. So Dick what do you say? Do we get wood?

With that I say good night.