My Airport Pat-down

When I travel I usually wear a stick-on heating pad on my back so I don’t stiffen up with all the required sitting. This has never posed a problem with airline security—until now. I must remember to remove the warming patch if I am pushed into the line with the body scanner.

When I went through security in Fort Lauderdale on my way home to New York I forgot about the pad on my back.  So the large-and-in-charge security man very nicely and apologetically informed me that I had to submit to a pat-down. He also assured me that the pat-down would be done by one of two female TSA officers.

I am not that modest. I just don’t feel that my parts are any more special than anybody else’s. And after experiencing  labor and childbirth when it seemed that the entire hospital’s medical staff stopped by about every 10 minutes in a 12 hour period to assess my progress in the most intimate way—I became numb to appropriate (or inappropriate) touching. Furthermore—post 9/11-- I believed that no one had any personal rights when it came to my and my family’s safety.

So I was okay with the pat down. But I was not immune to my own racial profiling. One of the female TSA officers was a large overweight teased-blond haired woman who looked like a sadistic, yet  heterosexual prison guard. She reeked of cigarette smoke. The other TSA woman officer was petite, athletic looking, youngish and very very butch. Hmm I thought to myself--which one of these fine ladies do I want to go to second base with?

Ultimately I hoped for the butch woman. I reasoned that she “knew what she was doing.” I also decided that the experience was the closest thing that I would ever get to switching teams---so I wanted it to be as authentic as possible. And fortunately she, as luck would have it, chose me.

And I think that because I was so eager to submit and was so enthusiastic about it being my first encounter that I totally creeped out the TSA officer. I think she was afraid to touch me. She was so weirded out by me saying I do not care where you touch me. I am so excited-- this is my first time! that I do not recall any real patting down at all. My pat down was as light as if someone asked me to pet a tarantula—barely a finger grazed me.

I have to say—I was a little disappointed. My experience could not possibly be what the public was complaining about. I was not violated in any way. I have been groped by my mother’s female relatives in fits of emphasis more intimately than that.

And now I am more mindful of tissues or lint balls in my pockets. I now remember to remove my heating pad before I get to the body scanner. Because it is not the pat down I fear, it’s the loss of the heating pad---those self-stick eight hour patches really keep your muscles loosened up.