Price Gouging

We just got back from our visit to Massachusetts. We were a day late in returning because bad weather grounded a lot of flights out of Hartford and a lot of other airports in the east. We wound up on a 5:45 AM flight out of Hartford and a 5 hour layover in Chicago. And, that brings me to my newest rant. Thanks to the TSA you can no longer take bottled water or other drinks through the security screening. You can however buy it after you get through the security checkpoint. So, in the spirit of good old American capitalism the water that you can get in the stores in the terminal costs nearly as much as a case of the same water outside. A 16 oz bottle of water goes for as much a $3 a bottle. That's outrageous! The food dispensers are no better! Because they're in the security area, places like McDonalds charge an additional amount to serve you. I guess we should applaud them because they're not jacking the price 400% like the water sellers and only raising the price 25%. Aren't we lucky! I think that the airport vendors should be investigated, but we'll find that they have to charge more because of the outrageous rent charged by the airports. If they're not careful, they will kill the golden egg laying suckers like yours truly. If a boycott of the airport vendors for a week were possible, we might make a change, but I fear that won't happen. If I were a conspiracy freak, I would suspect that the TSA is in collusion with the vendors. The next step is we will be required to use only TSA approved luggage and that will only be available inside the security area at a 400% markup. Then they will make us purchase our clothing inside the security area. I can see it now, we will have to strip and walk through the metal detectors in the nude. Any clothes we wore will have to be discarded, or you can mail them to yourself for a charge. Then you will have to purchase new approved clothing which will be one size fits most paper clothing for only $300 each. If you need clothing for use at your destination, you will have to ship it ahead in TSA approved containers. They could make more money by making everyone park 10 miles away and only arrive in, you guessed it, TSA approved transportation which would never cost more than $100 each way. nuff said