AIRPORT SECURITY
Ogged reports that, although he’s of Iranian heritage and “looks” Middle Eastern*, he has never once been subjected to security screening in a US airport despite many airplane trips since 9/11. He’s a tad perplexed, since he sees little old ladies getting singled out on a regular basis. As a fair skinned, blue-eyed fellow traveling with a US military reserve officer’s ID card, who gets searched on virtually every trip, I must say I’m a bit perplexed, too.
*Who knew that “Ogged” was an Iranian name?
Hey, I already made that joke!
http://www.unfogged.com/archives/week_2003_07_06.html#000481
And I think my wonderful family-of-five is in some Terrorist Database From Hell, because none of us can pass through an airport without undergoing “additional” screening.
I think it’s because my husband’s name is Michael Johnson, and that has been flagged as a common alias.
But seriously, here we are on a vacation flight to Sanibel Island, two fattening-white-middle-age-adults-from-the-midwest with three kids in tow (8, 5 and 4) who are so obviously unorganized and chaotic that we couldn’t participate in a “plot” if our lives depended on it, shunted to the side to undergo additional screening.
Well, it provided entertainment for the kids, who vowed to don every metallic item they owned for the express joy of “beeping the alarm.”
Yeah, they can swab my shoes for traces of anthrax, but when will they develop a USEFUL test — ya know, to tell me if I have athlete’s foot?
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