Maybe it's because I recently spent a few days in London, where the airport and subway announcements are delivered in polite tones that don't get your skin crawling, but I'm increasingly irritated by those security announcements at the grandiloquently named Houston George Bush Intercontinental Airport.
I know, I know: Just ignore them.
But I can't. Every time I have to make a connection through Houston, which is frequently, I brace myself for that woman with the voice like Granny in the Beverly Hillbillies, threatening "arrest" to anyone making "jokes or inappropriate comments" about security. The same voice also warns the traveling public, "Do not be persuaded by strangers or individuals you do not know well" to carry unknown things onto airplanes.
Oh, thanks for the heads-up, irritating announcer lady. Actually, I was just about to carry on this strange suitcase with the wires sticking out that the sinister-looking man in the boarding area, who identified himself as "Omar from Jersey City," almost persuaded me to take aboard my connecting flight.
Oops, that's probably an "inappropriate" comment. Git the cuffs out.
I know the announcements have been re-recorded since the last time I made an issue of this, because the lady no longer threatens me with "'rist." She now enunciates the word "arrest." Also, "b'longings" is now "belongings."
So a sentient being has given these announcements recent reconsideration.
Is the announcer lady related to someone at the Houston airport? Nothing else accounts for her longevity threatening the public every 15 minutes over the loudspeaker.
The same voice can be heard at a few other airports, though without the arrest threat for making inappropriate comment, which seems unique to Bush Intergalactic. Most airports have pleasant, easy-to-listen-to security announcements done by people with voices that do not persuade you to make jokes or inappropriate comments about security.
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By JOE SHARKEY
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