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The Traveler

Once, in a moment of realization, a security guard at an airport, recognizing that I was old and tottering, told me that I did not have to remove my shoes as I went through the checkpoint.  Not this time.  You know the drill:  take off your coat, your shoes, your belt, your sense of decency, and empty your pockets into several plastic pans:  wallet, comb, keys, coins, handkerchief--"Do people still carry those, Sir?"--fingernail clipper, little note papers, a pen, belt, phone and phone case, and ear wax.  Oops!  Another dime!

I did that.  "Raise your arms and pretend you are Jesus on the cross!"  Sure.  Easy.  "Palms up, Sir!"  "No, turn around and face your plastic bins so you can see that no one is robbing you!"

O.K.  I am being cooperative and uncomplaining.

I listened to the pre-game instructions:  gloves, back of the hands up my crotch, finger around my pants top, patting my man-boobs, nothing personal, you know:  it is all public, after all.

"What are those?"  "Those?"  Those are my hip bones.  "Are you . . . are you wearing underwear?"

Yes, sir.  I am wearing underwear.  Boxer shorts, should you care to know.  He called over his superviser.  His superviser patted my hip bones.  "Muscle-bound," he said.  I nearly laughed out loud, but the sign on the wall said that the Security Personnel took everything very seriously, so that I should not laugh.

"My carry-on," they said, "was radio-active, or odorous, or indicating a dread disease or agricultural fertilizer or dog in heat," so they had to take it apart again, whilst wiping it down for isotopes and left-handed quarks and elephant breath.

Nothing.

"Are you sure you are wearing underwear?"  I was sure, although his tone of voice caused me to pat my . . . to . . . .  I was sure.

They pointed to a different mat with two generic footprints, and I stood there.  A Super-Superviser explained that he was going to. . . . .  well, he didn't say it, but I knew that it had something to do with my underwear and . . .  and such.

"Down, boy!", I kept saying to myself.  "This ain't personal!"

I am a modest man, and I almost always wear clothes at the grocery store, but I was sorely tempted to strip down there, at the end of the security line, next to the Travelers Snack and Stare Shop, just to demonstrate to the Free World that what I had to hide was hardly worth hiding.

Having ascertained that I had legitimate reasons for wearing underwear, and that my hip bones were where they ought to be--one on each side--they thanked me kindly and told me I could use the gray plastic chair to put my shoes on, and things where they ought to be.

Sleep well, tonight!  We are secure.  I know that madmen exist.  I know that people really do try to blow up planes, and that we have to try to make things safe, if we can.

I do wonder what wearing underwear has to do with it.


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