The latest search
Filed in: travel, Thu, Oct 7 2004 16:41 PT
I hate getting pulled aside on the jetway. It’s happened to me four times in recent memory: in Tokyo, Chicago, Boston, and now Toronto.
My attitude when this happens is increasingly piss-poor. I used to smile, or pretend to smile, as they rooted about through my bag and searched me for piercings. But I can’t help but feel targeted — victimized, even, in my own frequent-traveler way. As I’m sitting here, shoeless, having my gear gone through, somebody else is taking the overhead space that I got in line for like a good little prole.
Three or four minutes pass, and the what-ifs get the best of me. I start thinking: What would you rather have happen to you: a secondary search for no good reason, or a kick in the nuts? After the fourth occasion, I think I’m leaning toward taking the shot in the junk. It’s faster, and at least as useful a deterrent against terrorism. But maybe I’m just bitter.
What am I saying, maybe.
Well if you will dress like some kind of drug dealer. With all your bling up in your ear!
Don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Next time, try to put something in your bag that will make the security agents laughing, it is your challenge!
Just attended a meeting in Vancouver that I had completely forgotten about until the preceding day: I had to buy a ticket in a hurry, flights on my regular airline were sold out. Take off from San Francisco at 7:10am, return the same day at 8:00pm. With a last minute purchase, not being a regular passenger of that airline, with no luggage at all, and a round-trip in the same day, guess who got “randomly selected for a secondary search”, both on the way to Vancouver and on the way back?! Ah, the pleasures of watching your shoes and belt go through the X-ray scanner while you’re holding your pants to make sure they don’t drop to the floor, and then enjoying a 5-minute inspection of that laptop bag!