I’ve noticed that when I don’t fly for a little while, the next trip is a jolt. The experience seems to regress a little every single day. So if you don’t fly for a month, it’s like coming home and seeing your child grow several inches in a short time period.
Today I was sent through the porno-scanner yet again. As I’m taking my shoes off, the TSA agent starts barking, “remove everything from your pockets, take off your belts…” I commented to one of the agents that the security experience gets worse every time I fly (there was a pilot behind me who agreed). As the supervisor came over and barked I should take it up with the TSA Chief, I finished getting ready for my scan.
The problem isn’t that I’m anti-security, it’s that I get to the line, I’m yelled at, I am now separated from my wallet as well as my shoes. I am essentially cast into the world without anything. It’s also a major break from my routine. Despite what the TSA says, this chaos is bad. It creates confused customers, slows lines down, and result in people like me complaining. A terrorist would LOVE the chaos present at the checkpoint.
So as I take the ten minutes to put myself back together and doublecheck that I had my wallet (which is by far my biggest fear at security now), I realized that I didn’t take my little bag of liquids out of my suitcase and nobody noticed. The agents missed it and could have cared less.
Now tell me the experience is anything more than reactionary security theater.
