When I first heard about the new body scanners and the pat-downs at airports, I thought, not for me—going to drive rather than go through that. A trip was coming up, with an uncertain date. I planned the route; got maps for each state I would pass through, had my car examined, and chose a hotel at the midway point. My most organized version of myself was in high gear and determined to resist indignity.
Then the call came. The event had been moved up, and I needed to get there right away. Two days on the road was not an option.
At the airport, it was Orwellian, also Kafkaesque, and also creepy. Did y’all see Blade Runner, where a sweet female voice intones government suggestions about moving off world for new opportunities? They had that same woman doing announcements about the orange threat level, the need to keep control of your bags, and about how it is not smart to accept bombs from strangers.
Sorry! I forgot it is not permitted to make jokes about this! Please don’t take me to Guantanamo. I am a law-abiding citizen; I swear it.
I got the full body scan and the pat-down, but not the enhanced pat-down. You stand in this big clear tube with yellow foot outlines, like some nightmarish dance chart. It robotically tells you to put your arms up in the universal sign of “Don’t shoot, officer.” Then it bombards you with totally harmless radiation that is nothing to worry about.
It was already distasteful. Then the nice TSA agent said, “I’m going to need to pat you down.” Why? I was wearing a T-shirt, a turtleneck, and a cardigan. Hey, it was 30 degrees out. Everybody knows that calls for layers.
I could have asked to be frisked by another woman, but I just wanted to catch my plane. Also I would have found a woman doing it equally distasteful. I do not think a government official has the right to just put hands on anybody. Not cool. But I was polite, and so was he. Our mamas raised us correctly.
We have been turning lots of corners into cultural insanity, and this is one more of them.
At Thanksgiving, there was the call to refuse the scanning and ask for the pat-down as some kind of protest, to gum up the travel works. But everybody just wants to get on the plane, so that is not really constructive.
This is what we should do. First, get a grip. I lived in London during the height of the IRA bombing campaign. All restaurants had sandbags covering their windows, and an unattended backpack was a huge deal, bringing dogs and police and cordoned off streets. But the English did not go nuts in the ways we have. They were stoic. We can be stoic too.
The second thing is use smart profiling. The dumb and unconstitutional kind is racially or religiously based. That casts too wide a net. But we can profile shifty eyed guys who are ticking.
Next time I am driving.
Mary Silver can be reached at [email protected]
Then the call came. The event had been moved up, and I needed to get there right away. Two days on the road was not an option.
At the airport, it was Orwellian, also Kafkaesque, and also creepy. Did y’all see Blade Runner, where a sweet female voice intones government suggestions about moving off world for new opportunities? They had that same woman doing announcements about the orange threat level, the need to keep control of your bags, and about how it is not smart to accept bombs from strangers.
Sorry! I forgot it is not permitted to make jokes about this! Please don’t take me to Guantanamo. I am a law-abiding citizen; I swear it.
I got the full body scan and the pat-down, but not the enhanced pat-down. You stand in this big clear tube with yellow foot outlines, like some nightmarish dance chart. It robotically tells you to put your arms up in the universal sign of “Don’t shoot, officer.” Then it bombards you with totally harmless radiation that is nothing to worry about.
It was already distasteful. Then the nice TSA agent said, “I’m going to need to pat you down.” Why? I was wearing a T-shirt, a turtleneck, and a cardigan. Hey, it was 30 degrees out. Everybody knows that calls for layers.
I could have asked to be frisked by another woman, but I just wanted to catch my plane. Also I would have found a woman doing it equally distasteful. I do not think a government official has the right to just put hands on anybody. Not cool. But I was polite, and so was he. Our mamas raised us correctly.
We have been turning lots of corners into cultural insanity, and this is one more of them.
At Thanksgiving, there was the call to refuse the scanning and ask for the pat-down as some kind of protest, to gum up the travel works. But everybody just wants to get on the plane, so that is not really constructive.
This is what we should do. First, get a grip. I lived in London during the height of the IRA bombing campaign. All restaurants had sandbags covering their windows, and an unattended backpack was a huge deal, bringing dogs and police and cordoned off streets. But the English did not go nuts in the ways we have. They were stoic. We can be stoic too.
The second thing is use smart profiling. The dumb and unconstitutional kind is racially or religiously based. That casts too wide a net. But we can profile shifty eyed guys who are ticking.
Next time I am driving.
Mary Silver can be reached at [email protected]
