Liquids On A Plane


DAY 1: “So how does it work?” I asked, holding a bottle of Diet Coke.  “Do I get rid of this now?”

It was my first flight since the LE scare (Liquid Explosive) of August 2006, an airline terror threat not to be confused with the other one of the month, SoaP (Snakes on a Plane).  No liquids were allowed to be carried on-board any commercial flight.  No snakes too, for that matter.

“You might as well drink it now and throw it out over there,” said Security Check Officer Rivera of JFK’s Terminal 3, pointing to a nearby trash bin.  “They’ll squeeze your bladder on the other side,” he joked in a stereotypical New York accent.

I put all my carry-on items in the bin and chugged the Diet Coke down like my mouth was a kitchen drain, mindful that I hadn’t recently ingested any Mentos.  “Hey, take your time,” Officer Rivera said.  “You don’t want that coming out your nose.”

I took my shoes off and put them in the bin for the X-ray machine while Officer Rivera continued to make small talk.  “So where you goin’?” he asked.

Rather than explain my long, yet cost-effective 20-hour three-leg journey of New York -> Paris -> Munich -> Malaga, I simply answered, “Ultimately Spain.”

“What do you have planned for Spain?”

“Well, you know that festival where they throw tomatoes at each other?”

“Oh yeah.  Where is that, Pamplona?”

“Valencia.”

“Oh.  I think they got the bulls in Pamplona.  You doin’ that?”

“I did that two years ago.”

I threw out my empty soda bottle and Officer Rivera wished me well to send me on my way through the metal detector.  Once in the secured area, I went right to the bathroom to relieve myself of the Diet Coke.

THE DELTA AIRLINES RED EYE FLIGHT (picture above) to Paris doubled as my Air France flight, as well as one run by AeroMexico.  The cabin was full of many “sí”s and “oui”s and on top of that, there were many Indians on board as the plane would continue from Paris to Chennai, India.

Sitting next to me in coach was Sid (short for Siddhartha) a VP of some outsourced financial consulting firm in Bangalore—“a boring job” as he told me in a stereotypical Indian accent.  With only six hours flight time to Paris, it was barely enough time to get a good night’s rest upon arrival in the morning.  Sid told me that he had purposely not gotten a good night’s sleep for the past couple of days so that he could just pass out on the flight.  “Red wine also helps,” he told me.

“Red, but not white,” I said.

“Yes, only red.”

I’m sure the red wine he consumed at dinner ultimately made him take a piss in the lavatory that night.  And I’m pretty confident he didn’t take a photo of it like I did—although who knows what he does for kicks from his mundane job?


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This blog entry about the events of Saturday, August 26, 2006 was originally posted on August 27, 2006 on the blog, "The Global Trip: Tomatoes, Grease & Beer," hosted by Blogger.com. It is one of twenty-five entries that chronicled a trip to Spain's wild Tomatina festival, Greece's awe-inspiring islands, and Munich's world-renowned Oktoberfest in August/September 2006.




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