Yeah, right. You even look like a terrorist.

When I fly I wear big gold hoop earings and constantly utter the phrases "Ayy papi" and "fantastica". I also wear heavy eye liner, brown lip liner, light pink lipstick, tight white pants, a gold cropped puffy coat, and sketcher sneakers.
Then I'm just some obnixious chicana, who might be carring pot, but I'm hardly a threat.
Dios mio, this is fantastica, no?
Si, mi amores. Si.

quote:

Originally posted by Prisa:
Dios mio, this is fantastica, no?

Sigh. The interchangeability of brown people. What are you going to do.

quote:

Then I'm just some obnixious chicana, who might be carring pot, but I'm hardly a threat.
Dios mio, this is fantastica, no?
Si, mi amores. Si.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Rosie Perez.

Ditto to Annie, a thousand times over: Strip before you reach the conveyor belt. Empty your pockets while you are waiting in line. Don't wait to be asked to take off your belt and shoes. And when the grey tubs are piled up in front pass them back!

For advanced queuers: When the couple ahead of you can't figure out how to work the automated e-ticket kiosk, step up & help them.

Wow. Queue Rage. Who knew?

I just go numb in airports. Makes things easier.

quote:

Originally posted by Continental Op:
...I am (as always) with Prisa.

"Whore"


OK, so let's stop beating up on Violet156. She's new around here and we'd not want to give her the impression that BnA is for the elite seasoned veterans of the forum that shall not be named. Maybe she'll respond. At least she hasn't deleted her post, as happens from time to time.

Sooooooooo...

My OP mentioned two potentially punched-in-the-face dramas have occurred after enforcing my ethics on the offender. Here is the first:

It was some time in late 2003 or early 2004, when I was flying between Zürich and London all too frequently. I probably averaged two return trips a month for about a year and spending my days 70/30 London/Zurich.

It was one of the last EvilJet flight of my life, the route being from Zurich to London Gatwick. I had checked in just behind an American family from Florence, South Carolina. (I saw the luggage tags. It sticks in my mind
because I bought a car in Florence 15 years ago.) The Carolinian Family consisted of twin daughters around 8, Mom and Dad.

This being EvilJet, I am waaaaaaaaay early (highest boarding priority, short as possible check-in line), traveling alone with no luggage. Speed is my thing. I get the first row, middle seat on our A319.

We land at LGW and I am the second person off the aircraft. I speed walk to the immigration hall and smack into a MONSTER queue. It was so huge it extended up the long, shallow ramps from the gates. This causes some confusion because all the EU people get to use the 'flash an ID' queue, while the rest of us are in the heavy questioning queue. So EU folks are just walking buy us. Fair enough.

After a few minutes, and many people lining up behind me, along comes the woman from Florence. She stops about 2m in front of me, but not in the queue. One of her daughters is with her. After glancing around innocent like, she looks back towards her husband and other daughter and loudly whispers with urgency "come on! come up! now!". Like the rest of us don't speak English. It was silly.

Since our queue was up the ramp, there were no cattle corral things to keep us livestock in an orderly line. This always gets me tense and I pay attention of queue jumpers. So, having caught on to "Flo's" behavior, and catching her covert whispers back was up to hubby, I politely interjected myself:

Stoo: "Excuse me, ma'am. The line starts back there." (Pointing back towards hubby.)
Flo: "Oh, I'm in the line." (Smiling)
Stoo: "Um, no you are not. We were on the same flight and I was one of the first people off the aircraft"

(Out of the blue...red faced and very loudly)

Flo: "What are you gonna do about it!"

(I'm shocked. Dear in the headlights kind of shocked.)

Stoo: "Umm..."
Flo: "Come on and say that to may face! Fucker..."

(I start looking around for...anything. Support from my fellow queue mates, the police, anything. It's about this time her husband, a ways back, can be heard in a meek voice...)

Hubby: "Honey...come on back here..."

(She closes the distance between us by half. Continues to rant and rave . The curse words are flowing out of her mouth so quickly a drunken sailor would be proud. E.g.: "Come on, FUCKER! Say that to may face! Shit bag..." Finally, a fellow queuer, who I later learned is from Texas, kicks in with)

TX: "Please watch your language. There are children about."

(Flo just has this angry fuck-you look, and says nothing.)

Hubby: "Honey...come on back here...please...it's OK...come on back now..."

Finally, after about five minutes (and the line not moving an inch) she grabs her terrified daughter's hand and heads back to her rightful place...10 meters behind me.

The woman from Texas and I start chatting. We are both a bit stunned. It's like talking with people after witnessing a really bad car accident. Sureal. Texas wondered what the Florence family's home life was like. Ick.

Anyways, it was crazy. There are just so many freaks out in the world. Not just Flo's unethical queuing, but the verbal and borderline physical reaction. I am also a bit unnerved that the airport security people didn't show up. It was that much of a disturbance.

"Queue Rage", indeed.

quote:

Originally posted by Stoo:

quote:

Originally posted by Continental Op:
...I am (as always) with Prisa.

"Whore"

I'm a simple man, Stoo. The gold hoop earrings do it for me every time.

As for the queue rager, I'm a little surprised she got away with displaying any emotion at all in Gatwick. They're usually johnny-on-the-spot about everything there. I remember two cops coming up quickly along side me once as I sped up to hand a woman a book that had dropped out of her carry-on. Can't imagine I'd get away with screaming obscenities in a line there, but maybe it was the southern accent that threw them.

quote:

Originally posted by Continental Op:
As for the queue rager, I'm a little surprised she got away with displaying any emotion at all in Gatwick....

Me too. The only things I could think of in hindsight were a) there was such a deluge of passengers at once they had their hands full already, b) something else had happened resulting in an "all units" call that left them preoccupied, or c) it was tea time.

quote:

Originally posted by Continental Op:
I remember two cops coming up quickly along side me once as I sped up to hand a woman a book that had dropped out of her carry-on.

Dios mio, whorito.
Dont you know allready?
Allthough you might have been doing a nice thing for senorita book dropper, fact is your still brown. Brown men speeding up on nice woman in airports is against the rules.
I give you this:

Travelling while Muslim (aka: Brown)

May the sweet virgin bless you.

quote:

Originally posted by Prisa:
Travelling while Muslim (aka: Brown)

Reads like a lot of whining to me.

As a man with an admittedly swarthy visage, I welcome the profiling. If anything, it's a cheap and easy way to get a relaxing feel up before boarding a long, cramped flight.

Really? Because the author actually defends profiling in the article. Talking about how the brown folks ought to consider the rest of America's feelings and just take steps to make their life at the airport easier.
But that's fine. Enjoy your pre-flight man-on-man feel up. Whatever get's you through the ride.

quote:

Originally posted by Prisa:
Really? Because the author actually defends profiling in the article.

Well of course I didn't actually read the article. I just hurried through it so that I could post my feel-up joke.

Don't go trying to confuse me with the facts, Prisa. And don't be shrugging your shoulders at me either, or else I will expose you as the narwhal-loving nerd that you truly are.

Well quite frankly I'd rather love the cute little creatures rather then get my jollies in the TSA shakedown line. But I suppose everyone has their vice.

Who am I to judge.

--oops I did it again.

quote:

Originally posted by Prisa:
Well quite frankly I'd rather love the cute little creatures rather then get my jollies in the TSA shakedown line. But I suppose everyone has their vice.