Airport Insecurity

by
David Whitehouse

I don’t fly much.

I do it just seldom enough so that I forget everything I learned about navigating an airport the previous trip.

Anyway, on a recent trip, I found myself at John Glenn International Airport at a quarter to six in the morning, and I was only at a quarter tank of coffee. Needless to say, my synapses were firing like a cheap Bic lighter in the rain.

I shuffled through a security checkpoint, unloading all of my luggage & carry-ons onto the herky-jerky conveyor belt and stepped into a full-body scanner.

An alarm sounds.

“Sir, empty your pockets and step through again.”

Again, it sounds. I look at him as if to say, “now what?”

A TSA agent shows me a screen with a full-body blue digital outline of my silhouette with a red circle right at the silhouette’s crotch.

I’m pulled out of line to get the mandatory pat down by the agent, between two lines of conveyor belts packed with luggage and laptops, presumably belonging to the two long lines of bystanders.

TSA: Sir, do you have anything in your pants?

Me: Nothing I wasn’t born with.
No smile. Instead, he explains in exceedingly clinical terms exactly how he is about to feel me up.

TSA: Would you rather do this in a private room?

Me: No (I say, thinking how making this moment private would be contrary to the intended effect.)

TSA: Sir, which side is your property on?

Me: …. Um, I usually hang to the right.

TSA: ... I mean, your luggage sir.

Me: oh. Over there.

Moral: Never go to the airport with less than half-a-tank of coffee. And if you can make a TSA agent smile during a thankless task, write a story about it!