WARNING! If you can’t stand a whiner do not read the following blog! I wrote it Sunday still smarting from my unfair and discriminatory treatment at the airport and in re-reading I do detect an ever so slight air of self-pity which I am not proud of. I could just erase the whole thing and no one would ever know. But on the other hand, I think we are all entitled to know what it has come to in these United States when a grandmother of 12 ½ children cannot get on a plane without harassment.

With that caveat, you may read or skip the following:

November 18, 2007

Why does the make ready for a trip always seem so endless? We didn’t leave home til 3:00 today, a good thing actually, since we didn’t have to be ready at the crack of dawn, but still…here we are on the plane FINALLY, it’s just after six and we have a four hour flight ahead of us. I’m a little cranky because I got the “treatment” again at the check in after being treatment-free for the last year or so, including during the entire Asia/Ireland extravaganza.. A couple of years ago, I was apparently on the terrorist Master List. I was singled out almost every time I flew someplace—no, EVERY time I flew some place—for “special treatment” which included everything from ordinary rudeness to being pulled aside and frisked to being put in the dreaded Puffer Machine, which happened at the end of a lovely trip to Las Vegas. Then we went to Asia and Ireland and I was treated like an upstanding citizen the whole time! This happy experience unfortunately rendered me complacent because I was completely unprepared for today’s ordeal. At home I had made sure my jewelry was minimal and had worn no belts or metal objects on my person. There were no suspicious liquids in my purse nor did I carry any pointed objects or weapons. At security, I innocently put my stuff in the containers, took off my shoes, and then confidently walked through the initial screener. No sirens or whistles went off. Home free I thought.

But noooo. The very nice attendant smiled and said, “have you ever been in the puffer machine?” Alarmed, I said, “Yes, and I don’t like it! It scares me.” “Well close your eyes,” she said and unceremoniously pointed me toward the phone booth-like contrivance which determines if you are fit to fly or bound for prison.

Not that I am looking for sympathy or anything, but even as an old hand at the puffer routine, it was just as scary as before. It just about takes the hair off your exposed skin which I’ll admit is a brief unpleasantness, but then, having been totally unnerved by that, there are two bright red lights which blink at you and a sign which says “DON’T MOVE UNTIL THE LIGHTS TURN GREEN!” This takes about an hour and a half. Well, maybe not that long, but it feels that way. When the lights finally turned green I was ushered out of the torture chamber and having passed that test (or maybe not), I was then given the spread eagle treatment and patted down by Chatty Cathy, who asked me if there were any sensitive parts on my body where I didn’t want to be touched (well, yeah!), because if so we could do this in some private place god knows where, and what was wrong with my one shoulder and why was it smaller than the other one (arthritis says I), and weren’t we going to have a great time in wherever it was we were going, and have a nice day. Having passed that test, one would think I would be sent on my way, but NO! Another nice man said he had to check all my stuff which he did with great care, all the while chatting amiably and when finished he asked if it had been explained to me why I had been given such a careful examination. No. Because the initial screener detected a substance on my body which is used to make bombs! Oh swell! I don’t even wear perfume, sez I, I’m allergic to it! He just smiled and said who knows where one picks up these contaminants. I was then free to go, almost in tears, to which my dear and loving husband said “get over it.”

At least the Gestapo here was courteous and friendly, which is more than I can say for the crowd in Las Vegas where a similar incident occurred.

After that fiasco, we met up with the rest of the group, had a couple of gin and tonics in the Irish Pub and I am officially over it. But I’ll go on record yet again—I hate to fly! Maybe they sense that and treat me accordingly. Can’t wait to get there where I promise my frame of mind will be from this moment forward uniformly cheerful and perky.

The next entry will probably be tomorrow en route to our palatial villa where I will be treated like a queen for the next ten days. I hope.