Where are the snakes when you need them??

So, you know what isn't going to be allowed on planes? (aside from snakes. We knew about the snakes.)

Water.

The latest word on the street is the Transportation Security Administration has banned liquids on planes. First of all, all selfish reasons aside, this is just a dumb idea. The air on planes is really, really dry. People are going to get sick if they can't drink water on planes. And unless the flight attendants are kept going continuously up and down the aisles to refill beverages, those little tiny plastic cups just aren't going to cut it.

Aside from dehydration being unhealthy, here are some other side effects of people like me not being allowed to bring their Nalgenes on board:

1) Sinus problems, of which I have many, are aggravated by dehydration. That, plus the dry cabin air, is going to make for some really sad landings after 15 hours in the air.

2) Headaches are also not improved by lack of water. I get headaches, particularly when I don't get enough sleep. I can't sleep on planes. No sleep + no water = very unhappy person upon landing in Hong Kong.

3) It just comes down to mathematical analysis:
The first thing you learn when you go backpacking is that the first sign of dehydration is crankiness.

Cathay Pacific uses Boeing 747's to fly from L.A. to Hong Kong.

Given that first-class passengers better not ever be cranky, lest they appear ungrateful, that still leaves up to 324 (if the flight is full) cranky economy class passengers on a nearly 15-hour flight.

That's 4860 passenger-hours of crankiness.

That is equivalent to 202.5 DAYS of crankiness.

Granted, this is a very simplistic analysis, as crankiness will probably not stay at a constant level througout the flight: it will increase geometrically overall, with a slight dip during and immediately after sleep hours. If crankiness can be banked, though, the extreme crankiness just before landing will more or less balance out the low crankiness levels mid-flight, creating a more or less constant level crankiness (probably at around 32%). I have illustrated this in an over-simplified (and rather optimistic, given how cranky I usually am on plane flights) chart - click, for a larger image:


This calculation also fails to account for the fact that a cranky baby is way more persuasive than a quietly cranky, well-behaved adult. However, I think we can overlook this fact for two reasons: one, that babies won't be more cranky than usual because formula is allowed on planes, and two, 15 hours of suppressed adult crankiness has potential for more explosively violent oubursts than a baby, whose outbursts are consistently explosive and therefore not powerful.

So, to summarize: one trans-Pacific flight without water can fuel the cranky machine for over 6 months.

One might think this is a terrorist plot to create national unrest.

So as not to succumb to said terrorist plot, I am accepting all suggestions for protest, including (but not limited to):
- filling a carry-on bag with tins of baby formula and distributing them to the passengers
- sending 4860 empty frowny-faced water bottles to the TSA
- snakes. Because dammit, if I can't have my water, I want my snakes.