Seattle Sun Newspaper - Vol. 8, Issue 6, June 2004
Copyright 2004 Jane Lotter. Do not use without written permission.
JANE EXPLAINS:
False Security
By JANE LOTTER
I suppose the life of a newspaper columnist sounds rather glamorous. You know: parties, awards dinners, hangovers.
But, in fact, this columnist lives a rather prosaic existence in her charming brick Tudor located in the heart of Maple Leaf. I don't travel much, for example. I haven't been on a plane in five years.
But today my family is going to Disneyland. Yes! The happiest place on earth. Or is it the sappiest? I can't remember. Anyway, we're going!
On the early morning drive to Sea-Tac International Airport, my husband, Bob, warns me airport security is tighter than the way I probably remember it. I laugh. I read the papers, for goodness sake. I know all about the new security measures.
At the airport, there are long lines of grim-faced folk passing through checkpoints. When it's our turn, Bob and the kids breeze through and wait for me on the other side. They watch as a female security guard instructs me to put my purse and the contents of my pockets into a plastic tub for the X-ray machine. Then she points at my feet.
"Let me see your shoes," she says.
I take a step backward and daintily hoist my trouser legs half an inch.
"I want to see the heels," she says.
I'm flattered, naturally, by her interest in my footwear. "Nice, aren't they?" I say. "Nordstrom."
"Take them off," she demands.
Oh now, really. Fun is fun, but she should try to act like a grownup.
"Off?" I repeat. Does she think she can HAVE my shoes?
"I need to see if that heel has a shank in it," she says.
I read too much pulp fiction, I know, but in my mind shank is prison slang. It's like saying shiv. Both of which in my cheesy-paperback-novel vocabulary mean knife. In other words, she seems to be saying I've secreted a lethal weapon in the heel of my Nordstrom shoes.
Dumbfounded, inwardly reciting my Miranda Rights, I slip off my shoes and hand them over. She sends them through the X-ray machine. It's then I realize she means my shoes might contain a steel support that would trigger the alarm of the walk-through metal detector. Well, duh! I paid ninety dollars for those shoes. They'd better have support!
Next, I'm told to walk in my stocking feet through the metal detector. My pulse quickens with apprehension. I'm nervous because even though I haven't flown in years, I know I will flunk the metal detector. I always flunk the metal detector. I set off the alarm with such dependability that I'm convinced years ago I suffered a horrible accident and, unbeknownst to me, a steel plate was inserted in my head and now everyone is too kind to mention it.
Once, at Heathrow, I failed the metal detector so badly I was frisked FRISKED! by an airport security guard. At least, he said he was a guard. For all I know, it was Hugh Grant on a bender.
Today, at Sea-Tac, I flunk the metal detector. I'm asked to come back through and remove my jacket, my belt, my jewelry. I'm thinking, while we're at it, why don't I just take it all off and you can give me a mammogram as well. Finally, on the second try, I pass.
Holding up my pants with one hand and my shoes, jacket, and belt with the other, I rejoin my family. How lovely to start our fabulous trip to Disneyland ("Kids Fly Free!") with that unique just-released-from-the-slammer feeling.
The flight itself is uneventful, although the airline does manage to lose my daughter's suitcase. It turns up later, delivered to our room at the Disneyland Hotel, with a form letter inside explaining it's been searched for security purposes. In fact, all our luggage has been rifled I mean, inspected. Apparently, getting a peek at those cotton undies I buy in bulk at Costco is a matter of supreme importance to Homeland Security.
Oh, well, what does it matter? We're at the happiest place on Earth!
We hurry over to the park. But wait. Nowadays to enter Disneyland, you must pass through security. A guard tells me to open my bag so she can inspect it. Lines of people are having their possessions similarly fondled.
There's no metal detector, though. And I observe that Disneyland personnel aren't checking the side pockets of purses and bags. So although it's a GENUINE invasion of privacy, it's really a sort of FALSE security, isn't it? I mean, I could be carrying just about anything in the large, zippered side pocket of my bag: firecrackers, a dead parrot, Amendment IV of the Bill of Rights (oh, go look it up).
I long to tell the guard she should open that side pocket: It's where I keep my shank.
But I don't. Instead, I hurry after my family. After all, Fantasyland is just ahead.
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E-mail Jane at janeexplains@comcast.net