Administrivia: catch up blogging will happen hopefully today

I was away for a week, and then I came back and I’m still not really fully re-oriented to normal day-to-day reality. However, A. just headed out the door for school so maybe I’ll catch up soon.

My biggest accomplishment so far today (other than getting A.’s breakfast and so forth): I delayed tonight’s book group meeting until next week. Yeah, it’s gonna be one of those days.

Also, I finally ordered two heating pads from Amazon. I’ve already massively overpaid for two heating pads from CVS, one for R., for the DVT related swelling in January, because we really could not wait for a delivery, and then more recently, one for M., who was distressed because of a bunch of stuff and then her heating pad broke. I’m like, the odds of another heating pad breaking down are really high (because they do) and then I’m going to be back spending $70 at CVS for something that probably costs a lot less than that on the Zon. And then today, A. is complaining about cramps.

For $50, I have 2 arriving between 2 and 6 pm this evening. Let’s see how this goes. Presumably, A. can borrow R.’s if she needs to until the other one arrives.

TikTok Airport Theory

I only know about this because Rorschach sent me a link to news coverage. We’ve been going back and forth about it for a couple hours now.

The basic idea is simple: walk into the airport about 15 minutes before boarding for your flight starts, to minimize the amount of time you have to spend in the hellscape that is an airport.

The actual implementation is thinly detailed. Does this include checking a bag or not? Michael DiCostanzo on TikTok sometimes checks a bag and sometimes does not. He seems to always have a roller with him, tho, so this isn’t a one-bagger only using the underseat space situation.

In general, boarding for a flight starts 30-50 minutes before departure, so arriving at the airport 15 minutes before boarding would imply arriving 45 minutes to over an hour before departure. For a big chunk of my life, the advice was to arrive at an airport one hour before departure for a domestic flight, so airport theory is not appreciably different than that. That advice continued well into the post-9/11 era, as security lines got long and painful. By the time PreCheck became common, the advice had evolved to 2 hours before departure for a domestic flight.

However, we’ve now been in 2 hours before advice-land and the control freaks out there — hey, I’m one of you, and very committed to concealing that fact from everyone I can, which I now realize is a sign I have a problem, so this is me standing up and saying, Hi, I’m W., and I am a Control Freak — have largely interpreted 2 hours as 2 hours before _boarding_ rather than 2 hours before _departure_. Further, I’m generous with travel time allowance. As a practical matter, that means that I am driving to the airport 3 hours before boarding, arriving more than 2 hours before boarding, and sitting down to eat a meal at the airport including alcohol, and arriving at the gate post-meal with at least a half hour to go before boarding starts. It’s really stupid, it takes up a lot of the travel day and my daughter is really difficult to manage because she’s quite sensitive to noise and the smell of jet fuel.

I’ve noticed how many times I could have literally stayed home until about the time my flight was due to depart, get in the car, drive to a nice restaurant, eat, and in a leisurely way continue to the airport, arrive at my gate and board, sometime around the time the flight was supposed to be landing, and then enjoy an hour or more sitting in the plane as it attempts to get to a point where it can take off. It gnaws at my soul. I do enjoy traveling, but honestly, this part isn’t much fun. And it’s no good telling me to take the train or drive. I can’t drive across the ocean (or take a train across an ocean). And even with delays, driving and the train take much longer than a transcon. Also, anyone out there advising a train when never having done it themselves (other than to/from NYC) probably has no idea what’s involved in renting a car at your destination. Usually, you have to take a taxi from the train station to the airport.

I’m leaving out that time my flight was outright canceled and rescheduled to a day later. Honestly, that one worked out pretty well for me, except for the fact that I used to check a bag in those days and the line was hours long and I missed my flight anyway.

Where was I?

Oh, right. Traveling as a family full of autism.

It’s clear from Michael Dicostanzo’s non-airport TikToks that he enjoys calculating risks and betting. He likes to be a little daring, and to have something on the line. Airport theory is a really great opportunity for him to do this. What I don’t understand is all the pearl-clutching news coverage of Airport Theory.

See above, Airport Theory is just Go Back to Airport Arrival Advice Norms from 10-15 years ago.

Now, why is Airport Theory a bad idea? Let me count the ways.

First, it does not specify don’t check a bag. If you are going to do this, Don’t Check a Bag. Honestly, if you are at an airport, probably don’t check a bag.

Second, it does not specify that you need to supervise the packing of everyone traveling with you. My husband routinely extends our time at security by packing bike tools deeply in his roller, and then they want to see them and boom, it’s 10 minutes later before we arrive at the Recombobulation Area. I don’t normally care that much, because remember, I get to the airport excessively early.

A little side note about my packing. I have an underseat bag (soft, expandable) and a overhead sized roller (travelpro and I paid for the good wheels). The underseat bag is a container for my backpack and my purse, so it’s largely empty until I get to security, where I shove everything in there because people get upset if they see a roller a backpack a purse and a soft bag. Idiots. I’ve taken to doing this using the sizer as a table, just to make the point super clear. They get extra weird about it, which is kind of fun. Anyway. I make a point of putting in the backpack anything that security might have any possible interest in. That way, it’s really easy to access. And of course, they can see it clearly and they don’t need to see it. The stuff in the roller is clothes and shoes. Also makes it light to get the roller into the overhead.

Third, it does not specify that you need to monitor for locations for filling your water bottle (you are bringing an empty water bottle with you through security, right?) and if you won’t be satisfied with snack provisioning on the plane, you’ll need to bring those with you too, because you probably won’t have time to stop at a shop.

If you can pack correctly, and know where the water bottle fillers are, and your route to the airport is not so long that you will need to pee before you board, and you can remember to bring your snacks with you, Airport Theory is probably fine. Altho I would strongly urge you to monitor lines at the airport you are proposing to use it at via website or app or whatever, and if the airport will involve a tram or bus ride to get to your gate, add a little extra leeway for that.

Basically, if you are enough of a control freak that this trend bothers you, you probably could get away with Airport Theory, and it probably infuriates you that you can’t bring yourself to do it. Me, it sort of infuriates me that in order to do this, I’d have to be boundary violating at my husband which in no way makes me happy. I didn’t even him force him to quit checking a bag until that missed flight. I’d already determined I could carry-on only with the kids years before that.