I made it a point to leave my Swiss Army knife at home after hearing that a pilot on a recent flight had his mustache clippers confiscated. They didn't even bother to check the box of cigarettes that sailed past the X-ray and metal detection boxes, along with my Zippo in one those little Tupperware containers they shove at you. I'm sure that the suitcase I checked wasn't examined at all. None of this really matters to me. I'm a New Yorker, I could get capped in the head going out for a quart of milk or pushed in front of a train by Cracky.
Life is full of risks.
The airlines have consistently been at the cutting edge of the total decline of customer service in this country, and I doubt that any tragedy of any magnitude is going to alter that. Pan Am Flight 103 got blown out of the sky over Lockerbie by an unaccompanied Libyan suitcase bomb, and there's no reason to believe that someone couldn't pull off an identical atrocity today. The airport bar was half-empty, and all five tv sets were tuned to a football game. I'd been listening to coverage of the war on 1010 WINS as I drove to the airport. I was a little shocked that after the long wait for some kind of visible retaliation for the atrocious events of Sept. 11, my fellow Americans were more interested in the antics of a bunch of overpaid pugs chasing a ball around in a big field.