mariness

Headthunk.

This morning's bit of news is that the New York Times and CBS News believe that people are using wheelchairs to skip airport lines legally.
Now, neither the New York Times nor CBS nor these alleged cheaters interviewed me, but if they had, I would had had a bit of news for them:

You rarely save time by going through the disabled line in security.

If only.

Since using the wheelchair, I have had to add to my airport arrival time. Sometimes, yes – especially in Orlando, which deals with numerous disabled visitors – it's not too bad. Other times – hi, Indianapolis and, especially, Logan, Boston – it's a freaking nightmare. In Indianapolis it took me twice as long to check in and get through security as it did for the two people who arrived in a taxi two minutes after I did. In part this is because I'd sent my mobility scooter back to Florida by car, and was on the cane, thus using those temporary wheelchairs. When security saw me in a temporary wheelchair, they assumed I would be able to stand and walk without my cane for long enough to get through the X-ray and/or scattershot machines, which, alas, not so much. (No one makes this assumption when I am in my own chair -- the assumption is that I can't get up.)

But mostly, it takes time because it takes time to clear security in a wheelchair. A lot of time. Here's why:

1. Most airports have only a limited number of wheelchair attendants. So, instead of just proceeding on to security and the gate, you have to wait for the attendant. This has varied – Orlando is anywhere from five to fifteen minutes; San Diego was twenty, Boston is "pray very very hard." (Rumor has it that prayer is also critical for wheelchair users in O'Hare.) This is why many wheelchair users try to travel with a companion.

2. Wheelchair attendants often double up, pushing you and someone else. (This is invariably true in Orlando.) This means that even if you are able to stand without a cane for long enough to get through either the X-Ray or the body scanner machines (I can't) whoever is getting pushed with you often can't so you have to wait for the other person.

3. Contrary to the opinion of the Delta person quoted in the article, wheelchair users don't skip lines. Sometimes we go to the Dedicated Wheelchair line (Orlando, San Diego) but smaller airports (Indianapolis) or airports that apparently don't service a number of wheelchair users (also Indianapolis) don't have Dedicated Wheelchair lines and we just wait in line, along with the attendants, with everyone else.

4. Even in cities with Dedicated Wheelchair lines, the Dedicated Wheelchair line is not any shorter, in part because able bodied people and/or families travelling with small children are sent to stand in it, especially if the airport is busy, which in Orlando is "all the time." And yes, this means that if a small child in front of you does not WANT to remove her Disney Princess tiara, you, too, will wait while everybody convinces the small child that even Ariel removed her tiara the instant the TSA arrived. (It's someplace in one of the films, I'm sure.) Even when it's mostly wheelchairs (I've never seen it all wheelchairs, although I assume that's a possibility) there's still a wait, largely because wheelchair users need more time to clear security because:

5. Shoe removal. I can and do remove my own shoes. Most of the time, however, I'm being pushed with someone who can't, so the wheelchair attendant has to remove that person's shoes, and then put that person's shoes back on, and, yes, you have to wait for this. In many cases, "can't" also means "swollen and/or painful feet" or "special shoes that take freaking forever to take off and later put on and lace up."

6. The patdown. Remember I noted that generally speaking you aren't going alone – you're getting pushed with someone else. One or both of these two people will require a patdown. (It's always me but I've definitely been pushed with others requiring a patdown.) This means finding a patdown security guard of the correct gender (hi, wait), and then doing the patdown. Even in the Dedicated Wheelchair line this can take time since the patdown people are often summoned to other lines to do patdowns because of problems with the scanners.

The patdown itself takes a couple minutes – longer than just walking through the X-Ray machine or going through the body scanner. During this period the wheelchair attendant generally gathers all of your stuff, and gathers the other person's stuff, and then, heads to the chairs at the edge of the security area and sits and waits. Incidentally this is also a period where I can't possibly watch my stuff, and I suspect this is when many people get robbed.

Oh, and, again, you're often with someone else. That someone else often has any number of things that slow down the patdown process -- inability to lift arms high enough, oxygen containers, prosthetics, medical documentation requiring review, inability to move legs, and so on.

In one case I watched an issue with someone using a mobility scooter who went through the body scanner without a problem and then had his mobility scooter test positive for something, so they had him sit on a chair without getting his stuff back, which then led to the security people yelling that the stuff had been left there for fifteen minutes, so they took it to lost and found, and...yeah. He looked at me as I was waiting for the patdown and said, "Next time I do the courtesy chair just to get my stuff back." (People using mobility scooters to get through the airport usually don't use attendants, although I have seen airport attendants accompanying passengers in electric wheelchairs, even when those passengers appear to be with family members or friends.)

7. If you are in your own wheelchair, and I usually am, the wheelchair has to be checked for bomb residue, which is another wait. This doesn't apply to the courtesy chairs, but, again, those courtesy chairs are usually travelling with someone else, meaning an additional wait for the bomb residue.

8. Regarding the abandoning of wheelchairs at the other end – I'm sure this does happen, but it's not because wheelchair users are the last to get off the plane. It's because, news flash, you also have to wait for a wheelchair attendant and courtesy wheelchair on the other end even AFTER waiting for everyone else to get off the plane. In my case I'm usually waiting for the wheelchair attendant after I've already waited for my wheelchair to be brought up; in the "this is why I try not to book connecting flights" I would have missed my connecting flight in one case if the connecting flight had not been delayed. This happens because – see point one above – most airports have a limited number of wheelchair attendants. And because sometimes it takes awhile for your wheelchair to be brought up from the cargo department. (In one case they accidentally sent my wheelchair to baggage claim and it had to be brought back.)

Sometimes it's just five minutes; sometimes it's twenty. Sometimes it's a half hour, with you sitting there as the airline attendants call the airport again and again for a courtesy wheelchair, again, AFTER you have already been one of the last, if not the last, people off the plane. And now, think for a moment: how long does it take most people to get to baggage claim? And, a key point: family members and friends can come to baggage claim to help out. So, yes, I'm sure plenty of people, especially morning/afternoon arrivals when the attendants are both getting people to security and over to baggage claim, do decide to just head down to baggage claim on their own so that they can finally do something quickly.

Also, not to really emphasize the issue, but, bathrooms. I encountered one elderly woman who got on the plane with a courtesy wheelchair, left the plane with other passengers once we landed instead of waiting for another courtesy wheelchair, and then ended up waiting at the gate with me for a courtesy wheelchair/attendant to help her to baggage claim. Her very believable excuse for this was that otherwise Southwest was going to have a horrible cleaning job and she really couldn't wait to be helped off the plane, even though she had visible walking problems and had to be in her 90s.

9. Oh, and abandoning the courtesy wheelchair right after clearing security? I've never seen this, but I suspect if it does happen, it happens more because the people might be able to walk the short distance from security to chairs by the gate, but could not stand in line without sitting for that long, either because of dizziness/pain/whatever, and because by this time the people have already spent considerable time in line. Or, they need to get a bathroom.

Edited to add: By the way, here I am talking about people who may well be able to walk short distances with or without the help of a cane, but for various reasons (arthritis, heart issues) cannot walk long distances or stand for long periods. Quite a few people, particularly the elderly, fall into this category.

10. And also, all this said? Can we perhaps consider that quite possibly the real problem is not people faking disabilities*, but that we have lines AT ALL for airport security, a process that by many accounts is not making anyone safer but is forcing people to waste time waiting in line and taking shoes on and off while giving security agents plenty of time and opportunity to steal electronics and sell them on eBay? After all, nobody is accusing anyone of faking a disability to get on Amtrak quickly.

This is a distraction. The real issue is what, if anything, we can do to make airports safer and more efficient for everyone. Including wheelchair users.

* Assuming they are faking – many people with chronic illnesses, including me, can look perfectly fine and healthy one moment, and be very sick the next moment.

This is coming a bit late, since I really was not feeling too good yesterday (and not feeling great this morning either, which does not bode well for the upcoming flight home), but I have a hour or so to kill before leaving for the airport and finally an Internet connection allowing me to copy and paste my iPad notes up to here, so, here we go.

This has been a strange, surreal, up and down trip, with everything seemingly either unbelievably, indescribably awesome, or unbelievably, all too describably horrific, with only a few things (the Southwest Airlines bit on the way here, for instance, annoying but amusing) squarely in the middle. So, after very little thought, I have decided to group stuff mostly by theme, especially since a few of these matters really deserve their own little posts anyway.

First up, as background, the Hotel. Auuggggghhhhhhh.

I started this blog entry soon after returning from WFC, and then never got around to finishing it (this happens to a surprising number of my posts.) Since discussion on this point has heated up in the past few days, I figured I'd finish it up.

( Cut for those who can't stand to read anything more about airport security. )

When I was a kid, I desperately wanted to go to Oz.

Sure, I already lived in upstate New York, in a yard with an enchanted rose garden where shadows could talk to you, if you caught them right at the right moment; Indiana, near a park with magical trees, and in Italy, a place of its own strange magic, where I had a rock playground to conquer and later a small "hidden" area to sneak into and rule. (It wasn't that well hidden.) But I still wanted to visit Oz. After all, in Oz, animals could talk, meals literally grew on trees as complete three course meals (and apparently waste disposal was never a problem); candy grew in great profusion; and girls could wander off into adventures whenever they wished.

And Narnia, again with the talking animals. (I think part of this want was just to talk to talking animals. I admit, after years of living with cats, I am a little less inclined to hear them vocalize their thoughts since I fear this will deteriorate into endless complaints about how their food bowl is not exactly filled to the precise amount needed with the food they most desire, that, and endless conversations about the great advantages of napping and sun and being left utterly alone during these critical sun napping times and that they are not getting scratched enough. But I digress.)

But other places never pulled at me in the same way. I loved the Earthsea books, for instance, and I have always wanted to see a dragon, but the islands themselves felt cold, not places I ever wanted to live. I felt the same way about Pern, even with its fire lizards (I never really wanted to ride any of McCaffery's dragons, though I'd love to have a little fire lizard. Think about how much fun it could have with the cats. And vice versa.). But for whatever reason – perhaps knowing that at certain moments your mind could be overtaken by the mating needs of alien dragons – I never exactly wanted to go there.

Or I found myself only wanting to visit parts of imaginary worlds. I had a faint curiosity about the Shire (though I liked the sound of the food), and none at all about Gondor (which seems to have wretched food), but I most certainly would want to take a boat to the uttermost west and wander in Tol Eressea and Valinor (which has magical food). I would not want to visit most of George RR Martin's Westeros – mostly because I assume I'd lose a couple of feet and hands on the trip – but I would love to spend a day or two resting in the Water Gardens. And, ok, it would be awesome to see the Wall and the Eyrie. Not that I'd want to live in either place.

(In thinking it over it does seem as if my desire to visit imaginary places strongly correlates with the quality of the food there. Or at least the descriptions of the food. Hmm.)

I'm not sure how a writer can build that desire – I'm not sure it's even always a good thing to have in a book. The Oz books, much though I love most of them, are not exactly up to the same literary quality as Le Guin, for instance. And I happily reread books set in places I would never want to see. But that doesn't keep my mind from wandering in the imaginary worlds I'd love to travel in.