“How often do planes crash?” I asked the attendant. “Only once.”

– Jay Leno

I am done with flying.

There was a time when, like most people, I felt it was necessary to rush through the process of getting somewhere and back because my business needed me, my family needed me, my creditors needed me. The world could not survive if I spent that extra couple of days driving.

So I gritted my teeth and let the airlines and the TSA put me through that insufferable dehumanizing experience time and again. And I gave them lots of money for the privilege of flying “Alcatraz in the Sky.”

In my younger days, I genuinely had a fear of flying. Think about it. That was a very rational fear. I was in a flimsy metal tube tearing through the sky at 500 miles an hour. Six miles up. Driven by a stranger I didn’t know and had never met. He (or worse yet SHE) might have been a serial killer… or a New Yorker!

Yeah, you can rationalize all you want to make yourself do it, but that’s the facts, ma’am.

In those pre 9/11 days, I would show up two hours early. Not because our very inefficient air travel system told me to, but because I needed to spend some therapy time with Dr. Bourbon at the airport bar to prepare.

Unfortunately, by the time I got on the plane I was a little too “relaxed” and my mouth was unleashed like a pitbull at a mini poodle dog park.

One poor “flight attendant” (I still say “stewardess”) found out the hard way while giving her little Ted Talk at the front of the plane. We were about to be flying mostly over North Carolina. I let her get through most of her routine until she got to the part about using the seat as a flotation device. And the whiskey spoke loud.

“How,” I asked, “Do we use them when we hit the mountain at 500 miles an hour?”

Nowadays I would be duct taped to a seat in the back.

It’s bad enough that they reduce the area of the seat one half inch per year thinking you won’t notice. Then they assign the late Chris Farley’s twin brother to the middle one next to you. And chances are he grabbed some Taco Bell on the way to the airport.

Many of you will remember the meals the airline would prepare if your flight wasn’t real short, and at least some “adult beverages” were free or cheap. Now, served in a cough syrup lid you’re looking at $10-15.00.

And the seven-peanut “meal in a bag”? The squirrels in my yard wouldn’t bother climbing down the tree.

And my favorite thing of all. For our safety! The T.S.A.

Did you ever wonder what happens to people who applied to be death row prison guards, but were rejected for their bad attitude? Wonder no more.

To keep the agents at the security points on their toes, The TSA has a unit called the “Red Team.” They send them undercover as passengers to see if they can sneak a gun or other weapon past the metal detector. The report is public.

From 2017 through 2025 so far, their FAILURE rate in finding weapons was – get ready – 95%.

Loaded guns, knives, swords, explosives. They stopped 5%. Five percent.

On one trip though, their intense training paid off. They located my 10 year old son’s nail clippers before he was even in the building.

The first TSA agent to get there, a young woman, nervously hovered over the scene. Eyes darting side to side praying for backup to get there. The TSA Swat Team was slow to get to the terror scene. The donut shop between them and Gate 7A slowed their progress.

Meanwhile, what had been a busy line stalled into a rush hour traffic jam. Angry faces behind us. I’m glad rope was on the banned items list. Saved my life. Maybe for real.

Out of all the miserable hours and experiences I have had with flying, it did accomplish one positive thing.

I stopped drinking bourbon.

Thom Caraccio ([email protected]) is a retired musician and retired motion picture scenic artist living in West Palm Beach, Florida who hails from Columbus. He graduated from S.D. Lee High in 1968 and still considers Columbus his real hometown.

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