Coming through the Honolulu airport on the way home from vacation today I objected when they insisted on making me dig out my boarding pass and ID for a second time while going through the metal detector. I hate to be a dick about this since these droids are obviously just doing their jobs. But I must ask you, mister metal-detector operator: your uniformed colleague at the front of the security line already checked my ID and boarding pass — do you not trust him? And if you don’t trust him, then why is that my problem?
While accidentally contemplating this out loud, I muttered, "Why are the security procedures different at every freaking airport?" and the droid behind the x-ray machine gleefully volunteered "because it confuses the terrorists!" And I am pretty sure he was serious, which made me literally angry with rage.
At this point, my genius wife, who is invaluable in situations where I accidentally start speaking truth to power, shushed me, preventing me from blurting out the fact that the 9/11 terrorists actually had valid IDs and boarding passes, hello.
This all happened after the security droids made our baby take off his shoes. (But for some reason they didn’t make him take off his diaper. Could he not be hiding an even bigger bomb in there? He certainly subjects us to large diaper-delivered bombs on a daily basis at home.)
Anyway. I think that as a libertarian social protest, parents with infants should insist on taking off their children’s diapers and sending them through the x-ray machine at airports.
If you complain, the terrorists win. Or er, if you outlaw babies, only terrorists will want to put babies through the conveyer belt at airport security.
LOL. I love it. I gave the “droids” a hard time at JFK when, yet again, my boarding card had a big XXX on it and I went through a detailed search. I nearly lost it when they made me put my wallet and belt through the Xray machine.
I thought it was because I lived in London. Then a guy from IBM told me it was because I had one-way tickets. A ha! And if I print out my own boarding pass, I avoid all of this guff.
These make work projects like the TSA have been going on longer in Germany with Lockerby as the excuse. It’s more an excuse not to think about the real solutions.
the image of carole shushing you in the airport before you asked security if they wanted to check for a bomb in revelin’s pants made diet doctor pepper go up my nose.
I thought it was because I lived in London. Then a guy from IBM told me it was because I had one-way tickets. A ha! And if I print out my own boarding pass, I avoid all of this guff.