Between high gas prices, price gouging in general, Covid, and generally ill-mannered and bad-tempered people flying is just no longer any great pleasure. And now they're cutting routes. Making it such that you've got to either ride the rest of the way by bus or rental car, or make arrangements on the other end of your journey with friends or family.

But I'm wondering, since there are a lot of people my age, if anyone else is having the same attitude that I've had since the 9/11 bombing and all the TSA rules?

I'm not afraid to fly. And I don't hate the TSA. I'd be willing to put up with taking my shoes off, for example. I detest having to sit in the terminals forever and a day, granted, because it would kill my back. But therein lies part of my issue. I have so much titanium in my body that wherever there's a scanner -- for example, at the police station, at the courthouse, at a given store, etc., I WILL set it off the minute I walk IN. I have a card for each of my operations, but I've heard TSA doesn't give a crap about that, and I'm not about to strip down... not at 67 years old... to simply have the pleasure of giving some airline all my cash to get scrunched up in economy with screaming babies and screaming meanies doing who-knows-what. After reading the horror stories of what they've put disabled people through... people with colostomy bags, etc., I know there are agents who don't have a lick of empathy; and it'd be just my luck to get one of them. I'm a card-carrying member of the disabled community. I may not look it, tho maybe I do. I don't know. If you're autoimmune, it's a weird disease, as many of you here know.

So, I've just decided I'll never travel far again. It's too uncomfortable to ride far in a car. Can't imagine doing it on a bus, tho I've not been on one of those for decades, so that image could possibly be outdated. I have considered a sleeping car in Amtrak, if I save up enough money. But that's about as far as it goes. Getting somewhere fast is out of the question for me, I fear. TSA and the horror stories, my disability, and my human dignity just don't mix, I fear. Am I alone in this mix? Or is there anyone else out there who has made the same type of decision?