The one I remember distinctly from going to Israel in the mid 80’s…
“Has anyone put anything in your belongings that you are unaware of.”
Uhm… If I’m -unaware- of it…
Granted, you did -not- mess with the El Al security folk, so a polite ‘no’ was about it.
Whoops!!!
I TOTALLY misread your reply. I’m a dunce. I’m off to my corner.
Not to hijack this thread, but sometimes there are very good reasons for the seemingly stupid questions. Here in Alberta, we are in the midst of a very large Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis (Mad Cow Disease) crisis that is costing Alberta ranchers hundreds of millions of dollars, and will probably put a lot of them out of business - ONE infected cow was found. The government of Canada was trying to prevent the catastrophe that happened anyway.
Similar story on entrance to Ireland, during the Foot & Mouth outbreak - huge signs asking for anyone who’d been in contact with a farm in Britain to contact staff. Presumably they took you off and scrubbed you with bleach, or summat.
More air travel tips:
If you plan on making a domestic flight, kindly heed the advice printed on your ticket: Plan to arrive 60 minutes prior to departure. To clarify, that means if you have a 10am flight, you are to be physically present at the ticket counter at 9am. Between your home/hotel and the airport, there may one continuous line of orange barrels. Or there may be a wreck. Assume you will be delayed by something when planning your commute time.
If you arrive breathless at the security check at 9:45 because you didn’t anticipate rush hour traffic, do not be surprised if other people who have actual brains in their skulls aren’t too happy to accomodate your irresponsibility.
When security rushes the tardy people to the front of the check in line, that always makes the people who arrived on time really happy. We love nothing more than standing around, being forced to burn all the time we saved while sorry asses come in late WITH NO CONSEQUENCES!
Why arrive early when their is no advantage (actually, you are penailized by waiting longer in line)…while late-comers are hurried to the front? Why should anyone show up early?
• When approaching the curb that reads “TAXI STAND” you will notice several dozen people standing along the sidewalk with their baggage. As cabs approach, the first group in line gets in cab#1, the entire line moves up, the next group gets in cab#2, and so on. This does not mean that you can cut through the line, walk up to cab #9 and throw your luggage in it.
• Please do not congregate in mass herds just outside the boarding area waiting for your party such that no one else leaving the boarding area can get around you.
• If you happen to miss your bag as it goes around the baggage claim carousel, perhaps you could wait until it comes around again rather than knock everyone else out of the way as you chase it along the inside rail like a racetrack greyhound chasing the bunny.
• Believe it or not, those inter-terminal shuttles approaching you have PEOPLE on them!!! Try and avoid madly rushing into the just-opened doors until the people inside have gotten out.
Yes, if they’ve overbooked but you have a boarding pass you can still get into the secure area. However, I think the previous poster was talking about making it into the secure zone without a ticket or boarding pass in hand, which is not going to happen now.
Reminds me of this: http://www.derfcity.com/o/highlighter.html.
There was an episode of Airline recently in which a woman was complaining about her lost luggage, completely oblivious to the fact it was going in circles on the carousel behind her.
Fascinating. Do you apply this philosophy outside of airports as well? For example, if you see a bus with a sign saying “Main Street East” but you actually want to go south on Park Avenue, do you get on the bus anyway just in case it’s labelled wrong?
Perhaps I should have mentioned in my airport example that the “out of service” bus was not stopping at the bus stop to pick up passengers. I actually saw a man walk into the road to the second lane and knock on the doors of the bus when it had stopped at a crosswalk, then get all angry when the bus kept going.
Um, so you actually admit that you try to get airline employees to let you have undeserved early access to a scarce common resource just because you’re too stubborn and pushy to wait your turn like everyone else?
If you want to board with the first-class passengers just to hoover up that valuable overhead storage space, perhaps you should buy a first-class ticket.
“Boarding has been delayed.”
“Has the flight been cancelled?”
“YES! Yes, I admit it, I was trying to hide it from you but you were too smart for me. I couldn’t stand against your relentless questions…er, question.”
Seriously…has that ever happened to you, ever?
I’m hoping he’s just doing a parody of county.
Thank you for explaining. Consider me enlightened. 
While your at it can you clarify the disease question? I’m guessing they don’t mean all diseases. I mean a cold is quite communicable.
Well, I’ve never seen a precise listing of what diseases are included, but the term used in the law is something like “a communicable disease of public health significance.” It’s generally been applied to HIV infection, but in some contexts is also applied to TB, or to other diseases which are difficult to treat. Nobody is going to deny someone entry to the U.S. because of a cold, but there was some debate about whether someone with, say, signs of SARS infection would have been allowed in.
For the medical exam required for permanent residence, it’s expanded to include other STDs, chronic alcoholism, mental defect, mental retardation, “previous occurrence of one or more attacks of insanity,” narcotic drug addiction, Hansen’s disease, sexual deviation (which has been a sore spot, as it used to include homosexuality, but this has been eliminated in the case law in recent years), and a bunch of other things I’d never heard of before (lymphogranuloma venereum, anyone?). I’ve had a couple of clients test positive for TB exposure, which means that we then have to prove that they have no active TB via chest X-ray. We’ve also had fun with clients with, say, repeat DUI convictions or undergoing drug or alcohol rehab under these provisions. Never a dull moment at this job, lemme tell ya.
Jeff Olsen - I’d never heard of that Airline show - I can’t wait to watch it!
Oh, and I can’t believe I forgot my all-time, #1 Airport pet peeve:
• Why must I always enounter two clueless buffoons playing Skybridge Parcheesi? When using a moving walkway, please observe the signs posted every twenty feet and STAND ON THE GODDAMN RIGHT!!!
I don’t fly much any more so I haven’t any funny stories to tell. I do want to pay my way though in this thread though so I looked up Lymphogranuloma venereum.
http://www.emedicine.com/EMERG/topic304.htm
You could sort of guess- venereum- would be something like that couldn’t you?
V
And I even threw in an extra “though” just for good measure :o
V
Not necessarily, but if I’ve been waiting for a while at a bus stop waiting for bus #1, and another bus has been sitting there indicating “out of service,” and it starts looking like it’s getting ready to pull out, I might get on, if only to ask the driver what’s going on. It hasn’t happened to me at an airport, but I have gotten on “out of service” buses only to learn that it is in fact my bus.
I’ve never done it, but under some circumstances, I would. Anyway, you’re kind of moving the goal posts here. Your original point seemed to be that those tactics don’t work. Now you seem to be saying “yes, maybe they work, but they are rude and selfish.”
Here’s a recap of a conversation I once had in Newark, New Jersey:
“Boarding has been delayed”
“Has the flight been cancelled?”
“No, but it’s not looking good – if I were you I’d start making arrangements to book another flight or to go home for the night.”
Yes.
By the way, for what it’s worth, now that I think about it I didn’t say “Has the flight been cancelled.?” What I said was more like “What’s going on with this flight, is it really going to go?”
You know, I can’t help thinking that some of you are taking all the fun out of flying. Yes, for many, flying is a necessary, boring evil that they wish to get over and done with as fast and as painless as possible. However for many, it is a new experience or an infrequent experience and they are enjoying finding out about airports and airport processing and are full of excitement - they may very well stand in your way or use up the overhead space with their Mexican hat that they don’t want crushed in the hold.
Cut them a little slack next time you travel.
Ofcourse this does not count for the tossers who are just rude, arrogant, annoying shits.
Sigh. I HAVE to. That is if I want it to be as pain free for my bad ankle as possible. You know how they say “First class passengers and those needing extra assistance please board now”?
Well, thanks to the nice little plate in one side of my leg, and the bolts in the other side (mostly the little bolts cause most of the pain) combined with the stance forced by the tiny tiny aisle while holding carryons, I have to either board first and get seated so that my stupid injury doesn’t cause me to hold other people up while I awkwardly turn and walk and step carefully enough in the narrow aisle so as not to turn my bad ankle wrong, OR, I have to wait until everyone’s onboard and seated (for the same reasons).
I’ve found that boarding with the first class passengers and getting settled and out of everyone’s way gets me fewer dirty looks than boarding dead last when everyone’s already seated.
And no, there is no longer any noticeable limp or visible reason any one would know, just looking at me that manuevering down the aisle in the midst of a crowd while holding carryon luggage that it is extremely painful for me still.
I wait for everyone to get off the plane before I even get out of my seat though, I can NEVER understand why people hop up the very nanosecond the seatbelt light goes off, and then stand all hunched over by their seats, or in the aisle with their heavy luggage practically pulling their arms off.