I was very late for my flight, but the security line was mercifully short and for a moment I thought the gods were smiling on me. But then I noticed the people in front of me: Old people; mothers with babies; foreigners: I was seriously screwed.
The man at the front of the line was well into his eighties. “Are your pockets empty?” asked the TSA agent, a large woman.
“What? said the old man.
The agent had been to this rodeo before: “ARE YOUR POCKETS EMPTY?” she yelled.
“Yes,” said the old man, who walked through the X-ray machine, which beeped. My blood pressure began to spike.
“WHAT’S IN YOUR POCKET?” asked the agent.
“Just some loose change,” said the old guy. Reluctantly he came out, removed his change and went back through the x-ray machine, which beeped.
It took three more tries for the gentleman to remove change from another pocket, a set of car keys and a nail clipper, but he finally got through.
The older lady behind him had no pockets and even removed her jacket and shoes but the machine still beeped when she went through.
“DO YOU HAVE ANY ARTIFICIAL JOINTS?” said the agent.
“No,” said the lady. She took off all her jewelry, even her wedding ring, and walked back through the metal detector which beeped again. I looked at my watch and began to hyperventilate.
“ARE YOU SURE YOU HAVE NO ARTIFICIAL JOINTS?” said the agent.
“Yes,” said the woman. “I’m sure.” She walked through the scanner again and once again it beeped, so the agent pulled her aside for a once-over with the hand-held metal detector. The wand went off like a siren when it hovered over her hip and the agent looked at her. The lady shrugged, unconcerned.
“That’s my new hip,” she said.
Next in line was an Asian man who spoke no English and did not understand that he was supposed to push his luggage onto the conveyer belt; I was going crazy so I just walked up and pushed his luggage forward and he looked at me with contempt.
I pointed at the x-ray machine. “GO!” I said, clapping my hands twice: “Chop-chop,” which was probably not politically correct but it got him moving.
Next in line was a stylish woman who was wearing boots that went from her feet to mid-thigh; she did not want to remove them and a tense negotiation ensued while the line behind her got longer and longer. She finally agreed, reluctantly, to remove them, an excruciatingly long, drawn out process that she carried out while holding up the entire line. I began to get chest pains.
Following her was a young mother who caused something of a sensation when she put her baby carrier, with the baby still in it, on the conveyer belt to go through the X-ray machine.
“What are you doing?” asked the large TSA agent, a trifle shrilly. “You can’t put your baby through the X-ray machine,” she said.
The young mother was annoyed. “I do it all the time,” she said.
There were just two people ahead of me; first was a middle-aged lady carrying her “Emotional Support Animal,” essentially a Yorkie wearing a sweater, but her shoes were off and her pockets were empty so I had a glimmer of optimism.
Just as they were about to go through the scanner the nervous little dog let loose with a spray of projectile diarrhea, thoroughly covering the suited business man in front of me as well as the hapless TSA Agent who was next to him. The man began to swear and the agent, literally, ran away shrieking.
The security lane was quickly closed and we were all sent to an adjacent lane. Finally it was my turn to go through the scanner; I checked my watch as I walked through: I had 7 minutes until take-off. Then I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Come with me, Sir,” said a different TSA Agent. “You’ve been randomly selected for additional screening.”