ROAD TRIP Buffalo’s Big D.C. Adventure
by Michael Buffalo Smith My flight was scheduled to leave at 6
a.m. Boarding at 5:30. You are expected to be there an hour before your flight, so I set my goals for arriving in the terminal at 5. That put me leaving East Spartanburg at 4 to in- sure I made it to Greenville Spartanburg In- ternational by 5. As an aside, I have not driven in the
dark for over 5 years, ever since I had eye sur- gery. I just can’t see well at night. Of course, I had no choice but to cowboy up and hit the road. My primary issue was the back roads between my home and the Interstate. Slow going, my bright lights on, pissing off every oncoming car - you get the picture. I was okay on the highway until I came
upon road construction, where they bottle- neck all of the traffic into the left lane, about 6-inches from the concrete wall barrier. Somehow I made it to the airport, parked in the sky-lot of the parking garage, grabbed my bag (I decided to pack light so I wouldn’t have to go through the whole baggage check hassle) and headed for the pre-boarding in- spection. I proceeded to set off an alarm that woke me up very quickly. I looked at the bag inspector and said “It’s my C-Pap.” He says “Your C-Pap is fine, it’s something else.” It couldn’t be drugs because I don’t have any. Were my socks setting it off because there are a couple of small holes in one of them? He pulled the zip-lock baggie from my bag. The one with my tooth brush, paste and razor. I had just purchased the large size Arm & Hammer toothpaste. (Ultra-brightening!) I
just don’t fly as often as I did pre-9/11, so I wasn’t aware of size limitations. The officer seized the offending toothpaste with a warn- ing to “buy the travel size.” $4.50 down the drain. I hope he enjoys the teeth brightening magic of my Arm & Hammer. I ended up at the gate 30-minutes
early, which is what I much prefer to ten min- utes late. The GSP Airport is under heavy renovations, so they are re-routing passen- gers all over creation. I am thrilled they are fi- nally updating. The airport has looked the same (other than the recently added Delta terminal) as it did when I was in high school. What’s hilarious is that my friend Bill Hudson and I shot some 8mm film at the airport in 1975 for a sci-fi movie we wanted to make. At the time, the airport looked futuristic to us. These days, it looks antiquated, and the ‘70’s carpet in the terminals is awful. Kudos on the updates. Leaving the airport a few days later I passed through a glass tunnel with three sets of doors that opened automatically. Bill would have loved that. Very Star Wars. I do love Southwest Airlines. I like the
way you pick your own seat. Exactly 24 hours prior to the flight, you log onto the website and click the button at exactly six a.m. I equate it to rolling dice in a casino, or even playing the slots. Click, you are in boarding group A! A-12! Yay! I win! I am the 12th per- son to board, following handicapped, special needs, etc. Upon boarding the aircraft, I couldn’t
help but notice that both of our stewardesses - I mean, flight attendants, were extremely hot. One blonde, one brunette. Things were
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