Before you say "Hey, I hate terrorism too!  This is old hat!", just think about this: you did not just spend yesterday (which topped off to be a 20-hour day on 6 hours of sleep) in the airport.  You did not have to fly 7.5 hours home from England to the USA.  You did not live those 7.5 hours in fear that someone you've never met, never even seen from a country you've never worried about had sneaked on a weapon that could blow the flimsy-walled flying deathbox to tiny bits of shrapnel mid-flight over your beloved and much-missed home country. 

I'm not a political person.  I'm the make-love-not-war type without the sex.  Personally, I don't see why everyone can't just leave everyone alone; no one's "right" or "wrong" and it's really none of our business in the end if a country's a democracy or a dictatorship so long as they're not threatening to blow up a hemisphere.  And hey, if everone subscribed to this concept we'd essentially have world peace!

Unfortunately, they don't and we don't, so we have conspiracies to blow up passenger flights and kill hundreds - even thousands - of innocent people who have never really wished ill of another country. 

Anyway, all this ruckus has led to this increase in airplace security which is my original reason for writing.  I, traveling yesterday as a member of a Girl Scout group, may have gone through the process faster than the average passenger (and my heart goes out to innocent Saudi-Arabians flying these days!), but again, if no one hated another country enough to attack their planes then we wouldn't have all this hype.  Again, unfortunately, we do, so I experienced a very specific Hell yesterday that I feel I should share.

Even before thinking about going to the airport, I had to assure that I wouldn't have any carry-on luggage save my passport, another form of ID and a small amount of money.  If US Airways didn't have in-flight entertainment like SkyRadio and the TVs for each seat, this would have been a daunting 7.5 hour trip indeed without a book or anything.  Since I came to England with three bags (two checked and one carry-on), I had to shove the contents of that third bag into the other two.  A tough task.

Then we went and got through baggage check quick enough, but it was the personal security checks that killed us.  Each individual is now given a pat-down and must remove their shoes and all decently removable items of clothing.  The contents of their moneypurses must be examined.  And then another personal security check before getting on the plane.

The flight itself is alright, except for the mounting fear that someone may have slipped something past security.  Meanwhile USAIR is making a killing off selling earphones because no one could bring them on or anything else to amuse themselves and it is physically impossible to sleep through the journey.  When we were descending the engines made a funny popping noise like a gunshot, but that was, in hindsight, probably just engine trouble.

Getting off the plane was yet ANOTHER personal search and ANOTHER baggage check, and let's not talk about the line going through customs.  Maybe four flights backed up and the computers broke down and our Girl Scout leaders barking at us the while, but like I said, let's not talk about that.  Finally I got into the car and drove home through rush hour traffic because we were two hours late.

In conclusion, I hate terrorism because terrorists are ruining my short-term life.  Or at least making it very, very difficult.  I wish I could sit down and talk with a terrorist face-to-face.  I wish I could ask him or her why.  I wish I could make them understand that in normal society, suicidal people just kill themselves instead of taking perfectly happy people down with them.  I wish I could convince several world leaders that we may be fighting each other but we are working together to destroy the world.  I wish, I wish. 

I wish.