Jaunted

Airport Hell / JFK / Baggage Scale Crouch of Shame / TSA / → All Tags

Nothing Cheery About LaGuardia This Morning

What were we thinking? Some crazy fantasy of Christmas at home drove us to attempt to fly standby this morning, in order to duck both the forthcoming East Coast storm and the just-passing Midwest storm. While there's still the remotest chance we might be able to get out before our 2 pm flight, it doesn't look likely--meaning we'll be spending 8 hours in the airport today. (Thank goodness we've got Jaunted to entertain us!)

Our first warning came when we spent over an hour in the ticketing line to check a bag, our first (and likely last) in 2008. We didn't hear a lot of chafing over the fees, perhaps because of all the news coverage of them; the whining in line was mostly coming from babies and small, restless dogs.

Here, the Baggage Scale Crouch of Shame is performed--rather acrobatically, actually--by a middle-aged man who has just discovered an extra 7.5 pounds of luggage will cost him $50. After he pulled out a jacket, the airline employee said, "Maybe you have a book?" He eventually had to pay a fee, but we're thinking there's something wrong with this scale.

...Namely that foot, which belongs to the check-in agent. (That's not our luggage, though, stalkers.) Our bag passes, but we nervously watch that corner for her to step on it again. After that rigmarole, security is pretty brisk, but the family lanes are still not operating and LaGuardia is still making people remove laptops from sleeves, unlike what we saw during our JFK Thanksgiving. But at least the agent working the line chose to communicate this by breaking out into "All By Myself," which was appreciated at this early hour.

Related Stories:
· What's To Be Done About The Baggage Scale Crouch Of Shame? [Jaunted]
· Thanksgiving: How's Your Travel Day So Far? [Jaunted]
· Airport Hell coverage [Jaunted]