Anything you might be seeing on the news about the U.S. government's effect on the operational capacity of TSA (Transportational Security Administration) is an understatement. I just made it through what may just be the longest queue in human history; 7 hours. That is not a 7-hour standstill, but rather a 7-hour moving line. It was a very very long line. It snaked in and out of the terminal, and back in again and all through it and around it, and down in the tunnel underneath it and circled back again, then up... this must be the type of thing purgatory is made of.
Once I'd finally made it through security, I had already missed my flight by a good 3 hours. It was after 10:00pm, and all the restaurants at George Bush Intercontinental Airport had already closed (a completely alien concept at, say, Istanbul International Airport (as an aside, isn't it funny how they like to point to the autocratic nature of certain “Eastern” nations that only ever name their airports after cities, but it's countries of the “West” that almost exclusively name their airports after their political figures? Never mind the wholly unnecessary confusion it brings upon international travelers).
I thought, rather naively, that I'd be able to get on another flight that very same evening or at most next morning, but no, turns out I could only get on the flight heading out a full 24 hours later. No way I was going to leave the terminal after persevering through the 7-hour queue of torment and deal with it all over again the next day, so of course I sent the night on a crappy airport waiting seat (No sleeping pods or convenient terminal hotels, which is shocking to any traveler whose ever flown through Thailand or Istanbul or Mexico City—which most Americans clearly haven't).
Severe failed state feels at George Bush International Airport right now, where in spite of it all, you can still score yourself a bottle of Channel no. 5.
The really crappy part is that all my luggage flew out without me. With a transit in Paris. I have a feeling my bags will be the recipients of their own brand of logistical horrors.