Here you are, around the holidays, planning your winter vacation during holiday break. Desiring warm weather, tropical beaches and exotic men (or women), you log onto such websites as Priceline, Orbitz and Travelocity for the best travel deal. You buy that discounted swimsuit because really, who else is buying a new bikini in the dead of winter but vacationers? You get your passport up to date, pay last minute bills, check with your credit card company and pack your bag to travel internationally. That is where the excitement stops.
Upon arrival at the airport, you are hassled, harassed and treated like a 3rd class citizen in your own country by a TSA worker with the IQ of a 9 year old and an overgrown ego. Your carefully packed bag gets haphazardly tossed onto a moving ramp to hopefully end up where you do.
Here comes the fun part: security. Forced to undress down to almost our underwear, we are forced to proceed as cattle- guilty cattle. Barefoot and now totally stressed out, we are forced to walk through metal detectors with our toes touching all sorts of disease that hasn't been cleaned off the floor for months. The TSA doesn't concern itself with comfort or respect for others. Make sure your liquids are less than 3 ounces and zipped up in a bag! This government encourages being green but insists you buy all new travel-sized mouthwashes and shampoo. We all know you can't blow up an airplane with a 3 ounce bottle of Pantene Pro-V, but who knows what the 20 ounce is capable of?!
You're through security after having to show your passport more times than fathomably necessary and you're onto your gate. Chances are, you have to wait for whatever delay the airport decides is trendy at the moment, so don't take your sleeping pill too early.
Finally, hop on your plane and go. The vacation is what you looked forward to this whole time, right? I mean, you didn't skip dessert for the past two weeks for nothing!
Time to come home. Hopefully freshly tanned, be prepared for one of the most degrading and stressful situations any human has to deal with- United States Customs Authorities. Get off the plane and be immediately shuffled into a line longer than any you'd see at a crowded amusement park and be prepared to wait. Forget jet-lag, the asshole TSA associates will make you even sicker.
You get up to the desk and are immediately incriminated as a menace to your own country. "Why did you leave? What are you coming back with? Where EXACTLY did you go? What was the reason for this alleged 'vacation' ?" This is only the beginning. You'll pass the first TSA troll to finally pick up your checked bag, thankful to be free to simply go home. Oh, but the TSA won't make it that easy on you.
"Step over here" says the toothless hillbilly in a uniform who was unexplainably given some sort of power.
Gloves go on, and the zipper of the bag comes off. All of a sudden, you're standing in the middle of a crowd of strangers, explaining to a TSA authority that it really is sand on you bathing suit. And yes, that is your underwear. I understand my bra was expensive, but I promise you it is no risk to national security.
This whole process takes an added hour, so hope those who are picking you up know the drill.
I've traveled to many other countries, and I have never been so interrogated as I was coming back into my own. The United States makes a legal citizen- simply arriving back home from a vacation- feel like a felon. What happened to "innocent until proven guilty?". What happened to our fifth amendment Constitutional right to own private property? My bottle of shampoo poses no risk to this country, there's no need to confiscate it for "national security reasons".
TSA authorities are amongst the worst people in the world, and since so many worldwide have to deal with them, I imagine the feeling transcends national borders. The United States of America makes it unnecessarily difficult to travel to other countries, probably because people will realize, "Wow, America is certainly not the greatest nation in the world". If the toothless hillbilly was given power over a woman with a Master's Degree, the man with a Ph.D in psycholinguistics and the World War II veteran, what kind of nation is this?
I had it easy- I was carrying an American Passport. One can only imagine how difficult it must be for someone with an Iranian passport, a Saudi Arabian one, or essentially anywhere in the middle east.
So travelers looking to get out to sunnier pastures this season, do yourself a favor and just stay there. The trek back isn't worth it.
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