Sin of the Month • Abby Bardi
	Security

Although I am the kind of person who likes to have her feet on the ground at all times, when I recently had an opportunity to go to a conference in the U.K., it seemed to me that flying was the best way of getting there. So I tried to find an airline that did not proclaim itself a symbol of U.S. nationalism, but, as it turned out, American Airlines had the cheapest fares, so we caved in to economics, even though my husband kept saying, "You might as well paint a target on the side of the plane."

I, however, was not afraid of terrorism since, after all, the odds are always in one's favor, and furthermore, I reasoned, the airlines are doing a great job of screening passengers these days. I was reassured when, as we entered the gate area at BWI, my husband was told to remove his shoes and was patted down for several minutes.

"We appreciate this," my husband and I both said to them, as if we were co-conspirators. "We really want you guys to do a great job."

The man patting down my husband just smiled grimly and then walked him to the Federal Express box so my husband could send himself a pair of clippers that he had foolishly brought with him. We were still expressing our gratitude for their thoroughness as we boarded the plane and hunched in our tiny seats, eating horrible food and breathing recycled air for the next six hours. The man across the aisle from my husband kept us awake by hacking his lungs out the whole time, but, apparently, no one was concerned about SARS any more, but only that someone might commit a heinous act with clippers.

For our journey, my in-laws had bought us T-shirts that apologized in several languages for our being American, but we forgot to bring them; instead, everywhere we went, my husband assured people in pubs that we did not support the war in Iraq, loathed Bush, and felt sorry for Tony Blair because he had been, as my husband puts it, Bushwhacked, so everyone responded to us with great enthusiasm.

In London, we inadvertently walked past the American Embassy, and my husband stopped to take a picture. The uniformed guard yelled at us to get moving, since evidently it would compromise security for tourists to photograph their embassy. We have a picture of the guard yelling at us, but it's a little out of focus since I was yanking on my husband's arm and dragging him away as he took it.

On our last night there, we went to see a play in the West End called "The Madness of George Dubya." Based on Dr. Strangelove, it is a surreal, ironic spoof in which a British guy with Bush's trademark eyebrows clutches a teddy bear and occasionally sings songs by Tom Lehrer, and we loved it. What we loved most was that we could hear anti-Bush jokes that were greeted with cheers, and that we could sit in a packed theatre, listening to an updated version of "So Long, Mom, I'm Off to Drop the Bomb (So Don't Wait up for Me)," and laughing without fear of being thought unpatriotic.

So maybe we were feeling a little resentful as we landed in Boston, back in the Land of the Free, etc., with a good 90 minutes to make our connecting flight, and found that, because of security procedures, we had to carry our luggage instead of re-checking it, a process that slowed us considerably. Then, we had to wait at the American ticketing gate while a sluggish employee yawned his way listlessly through a line of anxious passengers, making us even later.

By the time we went through Security again, we were in danger of missing our flight, and my husband made the mistake of mentioning this to the screener. As a result–as we later found out, this is airport policy–the screener began to move at the speed of paint drying, placing my husband's shoes on the belt in slow motion, pausing to scratch his head and contemplate the meaning of screening.

Consequently, we arrived at the gate precisely ten minutes before our flight was due to take off. "I'm sorry, your flight has already left," said the perky American girl at the gate. We pointed out to her that the flight was due to leave in ten minutes and was still on the ground. "I've already closed the doors," she said, speaking with languorous slowness.

"Well, you can just open them again," we said in unison. She pointed out that there were less than ten minutes to take-off, and that they had a ten-minute rule. We retorted that when we had arrived, there were still ten minutes left, and that it was her fault that it was now nine minutes to take-off.

"You need to get us on that plane," I said to her, in my sternest voice. She brushed me aside and waved on a group of passengers whose plane was also taking off in nine minutes.

"Why did they get on their plane?" my husband demanded to know.

"There were five or more of them," she said. "That's our rule."

"That's ridiculous!" my husband said, slapping his palm on the counter.

The girl at the gate waved, and a Boston policeman appeared and told us to lower our voices. We explained the situation to him in as reasonable tones as we could muster, and he seemed reassured, and looked at Gate Girl–her name was Lauren–expectantly. Lauren told him that the plane had already left and that it was too late.

Seeing that the situation was hopeless, I went to call my daughter, who was supposed to pick us up. (Note: That's right, Hortense, known as "Crash" in Driver's Ed., has finally gotten her driver's license. You've been warned.) By the time I got back, Lauren said to me, "You'd better tell your husband to be quiet or I'll have him arrested." Speaking only to me, she offered us a hotel-room-and-breakfast voucher, so I grabbed it and we left.

It was only later that I realized that all this Security business is a scam that these airport people are using so they don't have to hurry, or to be civil to people, or to do anything for the customer, who is now always wrong.

When we returned to Logan Airport in the morning, we talked to the head of the screeners, who told us that any signs of alacrity on the part of travelers are automatically viewed as a security risk. "If you tell the screener that you're in a hurry, he's trained to view that as a red flag."

"But this is an airport," my husband said. "Everyone is in a hurry."

"That's just the way it is," the man said. "It's for Security."

We also had a little chat with Lauren's supervisor, who apologized on her behalf and got us seats in the exit row, which have a miniscule amount of more leg-room than the regular cramped seats. "Lauren's a little high-strung," the supervisor admitted.

"Should high-strung people be working in airports?" my husband mused as we hunched in our exit row seats.

When we got home, I called my parents and told them about our adventures at Logan.

"You're lucky you didn't end up in jail like Sonny did," my mother said, and she related the story of one of her Mah Jongg friends, who made the mistake of touching a gate guard's shoulder and had to spend the night in the slammer. Also, she said, Suzy, the daughter of another of the Mah Jongg ladies, was thrown off a plane at O'Hare because–my mother couldn't quite remember.

While I am still not clear on exactly what happened to Sonny and Suzy, it's apparent that middle-aged Jewish women pose a threat to America's security, and as John Ashcroft travels the country defending the Patriot Act, I hope he keeps us in mind. Meanwhile, if you're old enough to remember the slogan, "We're American Airlines, doing what we do best," you have probably surmised that what American Airlines does best has changed since our youth. Now what everyone these days does best is to use Security as an excuse for whatever they want to do: from the trivial (being rude, kicking people off planes) to the more significant (detaining people without proper legal procedures, invading other countries).

Some day, future generations will look back on this, our Era of Security, and realize how insecure it made us. Or else, they will recite the Pledge of Allegiance in robotic voices. The choice is ours, isn't it?