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The Ultimate Abuse of Power in the Name of Security

As most of you know, I travel… a lot. I spend a lot of time going from town to town, kind of like a nomad. But a part of that nomadic life includes spending gross amounts of time in airports. Currently, I’m sitting in this little shithole of an airport called Bishop International, in Flint, Michigan. Bishop International boasts 5 whole gates, some of which allow for jet service. Whoopie. As I look out the window right now, I can see that the firefighters are bored and joy riding around in the fire truck. Ohh, ohh, and here goes a prop plane taking off. Major excitement in Flint. Soon, a jet plane will land. That will be AirTran Flight 258, coming from Atlanta to pick me up and take me home.

Anyway, enough about this ‘hole of an airport, let’s get into what I was really going to blog about today: Security. Airport security is getting to be quite the pain in the ass. Amazingly, it’s just fine in major airports like Atlanta’s Hartsfield, New York’s LaGuardia, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore-Washington International, and even Oklahoma City’s Will Rogers World (yeah, I know it’s not a major airport, but security was good there). On the last two small, insignificant airports, I’ve had to take my shoes off. I wear New Balance tennis shoes, which have no metal in them. The TSA agents even acknowledge that there’s no metal in them, so why in God’s name do I have to take them off? If I’ve slipped a boxcutter in my shoe, it’s gonna set off the metal detector (unless I cut my foot off first). Who the hell is going to hijack a plane going anywhere from Indianapolis or Flint?

When first confronted with this, I was a little annoyed, besides the fact I was late. So I kicked my shoes off instead of bending over and untying them. The TSA agent with the buckteeth and the low IQ became annoyed and slowed down the entire process, just to piss me off even furhter. He even told me he was intentionally slowing down the process because I was visibly annoyed. What an asshole.

I finally got a TSA agent to break a little bit…. One told me it’s based on the width of my soles…. When I pressed for further details, she wouldn’t give them to me. Hmmm, I must start buying thinner and thinner soled shoes until one finally works.

Maybe, it’s a secret pact to get us all to fly naked. I already have to take my belt off, put my cell phone in my bag, and take my laptop out of my bag. Now we’re adding shoes. Next year it will be shirts. In 2006, it will be pants, and in 2007, we’ll be running through the metal detector stark naked. Makes flying more fun, eh?

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