Digital Demolition

I’m quite sure there are countless posts about how much flying sucks.
Not the flight itself, unless you’re trapped next to the 300-lb bearded lady and the squalling infants are seated right behind you.
The airline stewards are usually pretty nice. They do know, after all, the indignity and lines you’ve been through so far to get to their plane.

In this particular instance, our place leaves at 7am, so we arrive at 5:45. Our flight is booked on American, but run by Alaska, so once you get dropped off at the American desk, you get redirected out the terminal, down a quarter mile, to the other terminal, where you can finally get your boarding passes. Though it’s technically an American flight, you can’t check in through American (because that would make sense), so you have to do it through the Alaska kiosk. Thank the deities that we’re not checking luggage because there’s another line. We finally get our boarding passes (the barcode on the itinerary doesn’t actually work, but luckily Dave’s credit card does) and we head for the security line. We show up at the apparent end of the 100-person-long line to be directed by Helpful Security Lady to the start of this other line, which begins at a different roped off queue, which is another 100 people long. *sigh*

Fine – we take our places in the apparently correct queue, as happy as all the other people sharing our fate. Trying to be cheerful, but mocking the whole process. Shared suffering is shared experience, after all. We get to the front of the the first-10o-person queue and happily pass into the second queue by Helpful Security Lady (why, hello, again). We notice now that the initial 100-person queue has more than doubled – it now extends way past the roped-off part and down the terminal. OK – it could suck worse. Good to know.

Another people-herder, this one with a bullhorn, starts calling out that the people for the 6:50 (six-five-oh)  flight can ditch the line because they’re going to miss their flight if they stay trapped here. Bullhorn guy actually has a sense of humor. Makes his statement a couple times, then adds, “this is for the 6:50 flight *only* – if you show up here with a ticket that says 6:51, I’m sending you to the back of that (gestures to the 200+ people-long) line. Quit complaining about saving your place in line because I WILL send you to the back of that one (gesturing again at the now 200-person queue).”

The line is moving remarkably fast, considering they have only two guys checking IDs. The airport probably didn’t realize that they were going to have that many people there at that time of the morning. They probably don’t have access to the flight information and the number of passengers coming to their security check at any given time. Poor guys were downright overwhelmed. I feel bad – they look really overworked and pretty unhappy. But they were nice anyway. At this point in any airport experience, even the least bit of civility or a shy smile is gratefully accepted.

I’ve packed well for this trip. Everything that needs to be in its own tub in two individual bags as the laptop, but all stuffed into my backpack so I can dump it all out in one fluid motion. Not wearing a tiny bit of metal. Shoes easy to slip off, but wearing socks so I don’t have to partake in the nasty walk of millions of other bare feet. Ew ew ew. Not wearing a coat. Phone in the bin with computer. Only clothes in my messenger bag. Not a thing that would require me to set off the metal detector – not even once. I’m the lowest trouble girl in the queue. But somehow I get rerouted to the plastic cage of extra search anyway. Clearly I’m up to something because my bags and my metal detector didn’t set off any alarms. My hippie husband (the one sporting the natural dreads that scream “I smoke weed”) – he gets through without a problem. I think (this time) it’s because Im wearing a Redwings jersey in Sharks territory. BUt how does that explain every other time I’ve ben pulled aside for the extra search? Since 2001, I wonder how many times my luggage been dusted for bomb dust? I fly twice, possibly three times annually. But EVERY FUCKING TIME I get the extra search. And I’ve learned that if you hop up and down angrily or look even a little rushed once you’re in the secondary cage, it’s going to take them even longer to get to you to frisk you. By then, if you’re not traveling with a friend, all your baggage, computer and all, has been left unguarded at the end of the roller mill. But don’t look concerned because that means you’re guilty. Of being concerned. Or probably of simply being human.

A year ago, when we flew to Hawaii for our honeymoon, I had just happened to have hurt my ankle really badly. I was wearing a knee-high brace that enabled me to walk and I had crutches. Poor Dave was hauling all our luggage. The SFO folks were pretty nice – got me a wheel chair and rushed us to the front of the security line. But then they made me remove my brace and hop through the metal detector gate. And there was the cavity search (I didn’t know you could get cavities there). I didn’t mind all that much, because even with the extra searching, we still got through way faster. Then, later that trip,we took an island hopper on Hawaiian airlines and they didn’t make me remove my brace. I guess they really are more laid-back in Hawaii.

So, how can they possibly say that their extra searches are random? How could I possibly score the extra search every damn time? Am I really that lucky? I sure doubt it when you consider how exactly lucky I am at gambling joints; if random chance was on my side, I’d be a fucking millionaire. Puh-leese. Fuckers. I am so tired of being profiled. I can’t even imagine how it feels to be middle-eastern or even have brown skin – they get profiled more often by other people inside AND outside the airport. Mad? You bet your ass I’d be mad. One of my hirsute friends recently severely trimmed his beard because he was considering visiting his family in Texas. So he shaved. For the TSA. Not for pleasing a potential mate – but for the fucking air police.

Oh, and by the way you SFO security fuckers, you made me miss my traditional “I made it through security” bloody mary. So I had to have two on the way back.

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Before posting this to the interwebs, I decided to give the airport folks at Seattle a chance to redeem their SFO brethren’s actions. Wore the same clothes and this time I even put my phone in my bag to go through the x-ray machine, so the only metal on me is my wedding band. I pass the metal detector without a beep. AND YET the woman on the other side of the archway says, “I’m going to need to pat you down. Please raise your arms.” **SIGH** And I assume the position reserved for gangsters. I break the airport code and actually ask, “what did I do wrong?” Her answer: “Your shirt is too baggy.” I took it a step further and said “but there’s not a dead fish under here.” Puzzled look. “Oh, um, you see, Redwings fans have a tradition of smuggling octopus under their jerseys into the arena during the playoffs. So they get searched there a lot.” She’s done feeling me up, so just dismissed me with a vaguely disgusted look. As Dave and I hobble away from the security area, shoes still untied, he points out that I broke the cardinal rule: say nothing to those searching you. They’re like cops: the only correct answers are “yes sir/ma’am” and “no sir/ma’am”. My protestation: I just want to get through this process without getting the extra search. I suddenly remember the actions of one of our favorite agencies: NUDE SUITS. Next time I fly I’m wearing a leotard and a tutu. Possibly with a tiara. Though Dave points out that this might draw even more extra attention to me. Really? Heh. At least then I’ll have yet another fantastic story about our domestic flying adventures. And I’ll provide some extra chuckles to the people traveling around me. And who couldn’t use a laugh while dealing with all the intrinsic BS of flying these days?

PS: There should be a law against putting infants on regular planes without notifying the other passengers. Especially when the infant and the parent all have colds. That’s just common courtesy. Also, there should be “baby-friendly” planes with a happy little place for them to squeal and coo at one another. And the parents could make those high-pitched baby noises at them and make encouraging noises when the baby takes an extra good shit. Airplanes could even put in those retractable walls like they do for first class. Baby class. I’m a fucking genius! I should design airplanes.

Qualifier
The American healthcare system overhaul has been a topic of great debate recently. I’m certain that many people have weighed in on the various aspects. But I’m not many people. I’m a single person with unique issues and experiences. (I have so many issues I could offer subscriptions. Ba-dump-ching!) I’m putting some links at the end of this where you can read some stories about the issue.

Rant
If you have any experience with the US healthcare industry, you know that it both sucks and blows. Part of the downside to a free market and capitalism is that everything is for sale and nothing is given. The way the system has worked me is this: I’m in my early forties; I had a decent job and was a contributing member of society; and I had a stroke. Now, I’m eyeball deep in debt, struggling to get back into the workforce, and working to overcome a few new disabilities. No, I’m not retarded and luckily I’m not all that damaged. If you were to meet me now, you’d probably never notice anything that made me look like a stroke survivor.

Anyway …
I was really lucky. I’d been working for years and had amassed a decent amount of state-funded disability credit. (It’s not freaking welfare, fer christsakes, I’ve paid into that fund my whole life and then I got to get some back. Go me.) I’d just finished up a gig at an advertising company and was on COBRA from a minimal-medical coverage deal. It wasn’t great, but it was something. Then the disability money got tight so I stopped paying for the COBRA coverage, and then it turned out that because of my (say it with me now) preexisting condition, I couldn’t get health insurance. I talked to a specialist and he said that there were a couple of companies who might cover me, but it wouldn’t cover the one thing that was likely to put me in danger, it would cost more than $500 per month, and it would max out at about $75K annually. Just for reference, my initial two days in the ER and subsequent eight days in the hospital rang in at just over $100K – not counting all the weird little bills that you get from, say, the lady who wheeled my bed from one room to the other, or the one who tapped my veins every day at 6am. Those cost extra.

So I became the master of financial assistance forms. I have paperwork of biblical proportions for all the places where I could apply. And some of the bills started to go away. Others went to collections, but since I own nothing, I have nothing to take or put a lien on, so the debt collectors just lined up in the “do not answer” category on my phone. I even made a couple laugh when I actually did answer and told them “blood from a turnip; get in line.” I’ve always thought that there was no one more free than the person with nothing to lose. It’s definitely an attitude that’s helped.

I did get to tap into my social security fund – now that’s something! Everyone says that by the time my generation gets to retirement, the social security fund will have dried up. The joke’s on them because all you need to do is have a near-death experience and you can get those dollars back today. Since I was on disability, and applying for financial aid at every hospital, most hospital administrators said I was a shoe-in for Medi-Cal (that’s Medicare or Medicaid in the rest of the country, but in CA, we’ve got our own little bureaucracy). But my helpful case worker at our local office said that I made too much money on disability to quality for Medi-Cal. To qualify for the complete coverage, you have to make less than $600 per month. A year later, she amended her statement to say that while I didn’t qualify for no-cost coverage, I might qualify for partial coverage. But she’d have to figure out what that might be and she’d get back to me once she’d crunched the numbers. I’m still waiting. I do give her voicemail a call once a month to make sure she’s not dead, but so far, nothing.

The real pisser is that if I was under 18 or over 65, before my societal usefulness had started or after it was over, I would quality for complete coverage. I read a really inspiring story while hanging out in some waiting room about a five year-old boy who had been on life support for four years, completely funded by Medi-Cal. This thing, that had never established itself as a fucking person, was getting a full ride for a life that hadn’t even started. Oooooo – talking about that will get my pulse racing (which is good, really, because I need the blood shooting through my arteries really fast to avoid those pesky clots – the doctor says lots of salt is good, too).

But wait, there’s more.
One of the hospitals rejected my financial assistance request because my disability payments were $10 over the allowed margin of error. HealthySF, a local program, denied me coverage because I’m on federal disability so, they say, I should be getting Medi-Cal. Are you sensing a theme here? It’s one of frustration, and I’ve often thought that death would have been easier (don’t worry, I already have the world’s smallest violin, and I’ll definitely turn it up). My frustration is echoed again and again in friends and family, each with health and financial problems. Lara and I were having cocktails the other week and I suggested we should start a “damaged girls” club. A once-a-month meeting to get drunk, bitch about our stuff, and swap ideas and resources.

It can’t rain all the time
I keep living because I have the hippie husband and the wonderful grandma and a few friends that make the living worth doing. And though the last 19 months have been a nonstop laugh riot, I have something to live for and someone to do it with. After the stroke , most of my regular doctors agreed to see me pro-bono or for a discount until I could get back on track. Dr. Quintana, who I met the day after the second stroke (the first time they’d finally correctly diagnosed me) said he’d continue my treatment at no charge (which turned out to be not quite true, though he has talked a heart-monitor company into letting me use their service and equipment gratis). Wendy, my therapist, from whom I’d graduated, started seeing me again, weekly and for free, to help me through the rough patches. And I graduated again. People really did step up and help, and most of them are still my friends today. Which rocks.

For more opinions and news, check these out:

• Michael Tomasky is an editor of Guardian America – he has a bunch of posts relating to the recent healthcare activity – on the GuardianUKs site: Michael Tomasky’s blo
• Catherine Arnst is a senior writer for BusinessWeek. Here’s what she has to say about how much more we spend and how much less we get compared to other countries.
• The Washington Post website has a whole section dedicated to following the story. Who doesn’t trust the Post?
• If you don’t trust the Washington Post, maybe you’ll like The New York Times better. Here’s one from them.
• For balance, let’s let the right check in. Here’s Ryan Ellis’ point of view.
• And who can forget the religious folks? You know they have stuff to say.