It’s 7am, and I’m at the airport, waiting to board my plane. I’m not going to Brazil today – I’m headed to St Croix for the weekend. I won’t be putting in too much beach time because I am going to paint my condo at Colony Cove. I couldn’t find anyone else to do it……
I’m still pretty steamed from the line at the x-ray scanners at the entrance to the terminal. I do this all of the time. I removed my laptop from my carry-on, took off my shoes and my jacket, put them in the bin with my cell phone and watch. The laptop is in a separate bin and I’m moving through the line. The machine eats my bag, swallows the bins and it’s my turn to go through the body scanner.
I wait a minute or so after the last person goes through and I follow slowly, holding my boarding pass in my left hand. The scanner makes no indication that I have anything bad, so I figure I’m good to go. The attendant right in front of me was watching me the entire time. Oh, wait. He’s upset, and he’s telling me in a booming voice (as if he was a hall monitor catching a kid cutting class) to go back through the scanner and wait. Huh? It turns out that the little Japanese lady in front of me has been chosen for some sort of special search 
and I walked through the scanner before I received my proper permission.
Properly chastised, I cower back behind the scanner and wait for the big guy with the booming voice to look upon me with favor and allow me to proceed on my way. Although I still had my boarding pass in my hand (and someone else had checked it 15 feet before), his booming voice sounded again , asking me to hold up my boarding pass. He then announced to anyone within earshot (perhaps a kilometer or so) that everyone needed their boarding passes at the scanner. I received his benevolent permission to proceed and walked to the rollers in my socks to retrieve my stuff. Of course, there’s no place to stop to put on my shoes, so I proceed out into the terminal to keep from holding everyone else up.
Hey, I’ve gone through a scanner before – about a week ago. I’ll go through again on Sunday when I return and once again on Thursday night when I head to Brasil, on my 23rd trip there in two years. I know how air travel works, and I’ve jumped through all of the hoops. I’m upset because I was just yelled at by some jerk who, with his high-school education and his guvmint job, feels entitled to treat me (along with the rest of the flying public) as if he was doing me a favor, letting me pass only when he decides it’s okay.
I PAID for this ticket! I paid the taxes that pay his salary. I am sure that I paid extra fees just to cover the extra expense to pay for his knuckle-dragging ass. Maybe I’m just upset because I haven’t been to bed – I don’t know. I am not a criminal, I resent being treated like one. Why does the government think this is a good thing? I am also relatively sure that that little Japanese lady in front of me was not carrying explosives in her bra. Maybe I’m just tired. I worked all night. I’ve got an upgraded business class seat
and I’m going to take a nap.
Oh, and I miss my Monica, and I wish she was sitting next to me instead of the nasty lady that’s there now that’s speaking much too loudly into her cell phone. I am not interested in her conversation, but I have to hear it anyway. 
Wish she had one of those….. Grrrrrrr
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