terrorists: making long, international flights even more miserable.

Since the AirTerror plot was apparently foiled before it killed anyone I'll take a moment to whine on a purely superficial level about the many ways they've just made international air travel that. much. worse.

Thanks, CNN, for dropping the info that the terror plot involved mixing a UK version of Gatorade with some "gel" and detonating the cocktail with an mp3 player. Because now I can rest assured that ALL of my methods of combating sheer, unadulturated INSANITY during my long, coach-class flight to Paradise will be well and truly OUTLAWED. Great.

I'd planned to pack a stack of books, about five POUNDS of Sour Patch Kids, a sixer of diet RockStar and my iPod in my purse and "handle" the 19 hours of air travel with as much dignity as possible.

I don't fly well. I can't sleep on planes. And when I don't sleep and am cramped and cold and uncomfortable, and when they try to convince me it's dinner time by feeding me salisbury steak and try to convince me it's nighttime by turning off the cabin lights and try to convince me it's FUN by showing me badly "edited for family-friendliness" versions of terrible romantic comedies (my cheerful alternative: staring at our hardly-moving cartoon airplane imposed over a big black expanse of imaginary ocean...reminding me, in no uncertain terms, that we're a LONG flippin way from there, yet), I get emotional. In fact, I cry.

SO - to compound the emotional, sleepless mess that already makes flying awful, we now have substantial FEAR THAT THE PLANE WILL EXPLODE MID-AIR, and what I can only anticipate will be a cruel, unsual mp3 ban...and sports drink ban. And, knowing my luck, ban of all candies of a jelly-consistency.

I love candy.

I read a list of new "Airport Rules" that Fox News came up with (relating mostly to flights bound in and out of the UK) that basically prohibits ANY items from being carried on the plane...basically, the UK is now in the prestigious position of dictating how many tampons are considered "normal" in the course of a flight...any tampons, for instance, that seem to exceed what a woman might ordinarily need in the course of a flight are BANNED.

Same with any lotion, hair gel, toothpaste, or electronic key chain.

They don't speak specifically to Jolly Ranchers or seedy crime novels (please! just let me bring my George Pelecanos on board! For the love of a young woman's sanity....PLEASE!)

I'm sure my discomfort has NOTHING to do with the fact that FULL can of soda was dropped in my lap by a flight attendant the last time I flew internationally. Or the fact that 3 times in 4 my luggage has been misplaced. Or the fact that the moment I step into an airplane I suffer a rash of zits and become immediately sick upon arrival (sinus irritation EVERY time I fly)...

So thanks, fascist terrorists, for making an unpleasant experience even more unpleasant. And if the Department of Homeland Security has a problem with my alternates (Skittles and diet Coke), I'm personally enlisting in the Army...because I wanna go fight the bad guys that just made rockin out to Christina Aguilera while buzzed on space caffeine and mutant alien minerals a federal offense.