Well, I'm off to prison today. Not really, but I think I understand what it must feel like. I have to stand in line with hundreds of other people, all of us to be held captive in an aluminum prison at 32,000 feet for 13 hours. We have to empty our pockets, take off our belts and waddle around without our shoes as the guards mock us.
The little bag I'm allowed to bring to prison will be searched. My toothpaste will be confiscated and all my hotel-sized bottles placed into a regulation, prison-issued plastic bag. Will my dental floss be confiscated too? Couldn't that be a weapon used by a terrorist orthodontist?
I'll be singled out for special attention by the guards on every stop. I'll have my shoes taken off of me several times before I enter the prison and made to wait each time, looking foolish while sitting in a little chair as other prisoners glare at me with suspicion. You see, I cannot buy an airline ticket with a credit card. Oh, I have plenty of credit cards, but no one in Japan can buy a ticket with a credit card. I can't even use a credit card to buy a ticket directly from Delta Airlines. All airline tickets have to be purchased by bank transfer, so I'm a marked man. I'm labeled as a special threat because I didn't (can't) use a credit card.
After all that humiliation, I get to have lousy prison food thrown onto my tray by scowling "senior" prison guards who get the plum international flights. They always seem to be 50-something battle axes who spend all their time in the galley reading magazines. My legs don't handle 13-hour flights well, so sometimes I like to walk a little. I can't get very far, but even a walk to the back of plane is enough satisfy my aching legs. Sometimes I even ask for a glass of water or coffee from the guards. They are usually very kind to me and grunt something like, "Get it yourself."
Most of the on-board prison matrons have a hard time walking down the aisles on the plane anyway because their hips slap every seat back, startling the prisoners row after row, so I can understand why they like to stay in the back to read magazines and eat salty snacks.
Last, but not least, I pay to go through this.
Then I get to enjoy the immigration and customs people. Thank God I'm landing in Atlanta where the people act normally. The NY, Chicago and Detroit people are brutal and sadistic. I wonder if I'll get the same strange half question I usually get when they examine "my papers?"
"You have a permanent resident visa for Japan?" they usually say with a raised eyebrow.
Resisting the urge to blurt out, "Oh my God! How did that get in there?" I usually just say, "yes," as I look meek and try my best to look harmless.
"There is no exiration date on the visa."
"That would be why they call it permanent."
