Negotiating the “security” gauntlet

There is no such thing as a non-stop flight anymore. What that does to the flying population is introduce them all to the inside of an ever-increasing number of airport terminals.

I don’t think that they will ever get overly familiar with them though. During our trip last week, the PA announcer requested that if there were anyone in the airport who spoke Spanish, they were needed at the southwest baggage service area. Well, I don’t speak much Spanish, but conjugating the verb “volar” would be easier than telling which direction was southwest.

It also means that whenever they book a destination, they are going to have to take off and land more than once. That part of the experience gives many people ascent/descent disease which is characterized by white knuckles, sweaty palms, and anxiety.

But all that is nothing to compare with the experience of negotiating airline security which causes the onset of hysteria. Thankfully travelers only have to do that once per destination.

I wouldn’t want to discourage you, but in case you haven’t flown in the last ten years, this is how it goes.

First you stand in one of the lines which they try to make you think is short. They do that by guiding you through a narrow maze of ninety degree turns like the ordering line at Wendy’s. By the time you have arrived at checkpoint A, you have already traveled 50 feet in detours which is a good ten feet as the crow flies. At Wendy’s, however, you get a juicy hamburger at the end of the line.

At airport security they tempt you with this delectable treat: you are abandoned barefoot and standing at the tail end of a high-speed conveyor belt with your driver’s license between your teeth, your hat on sideways and your belongings piling up on your unprotected toes.

When you finally gather up all of your clothing and other necessities, it is your job to get dressed while hopping quickly away from the unloading area which is a bleak, uncarpeted, and chairless space where spectators watch you try to dress using no available extremities, with or without opposable thumbs, while hopping around on one foot.

Believe it or not, emerging on the other side of “security” with half of your clothes in your hand means that the worst part of the ordeal is over. If you were still in there somewhere--in the uncharted reaches of “security”--someone would be trying on your underwear, weighing your bag of Barbie toiletries, and confiscating (recycling) your nail clippers and your key chain while the agent at your gate half a mile away is boarding rows ten and higher.

Entering “security” is about the same as leaving, only you are apt to drop your picture ID three times while trying to trap it against your slippery toiletries bag with your opposable thumb while removing everything from the pocket on the opposing side of your body with your opposable thumb stuck on the outside.
Last week when we were obliged to go through airport security, every time I turned around, literally, Mr. B.’s driver’s license was on the floor. Mine, incidentally, was behind my ear.

So the Columbus Airport (CMH) has one of the worst areas that I have ever had the misfortune to emerge from security into. Right out of the X-ray machine and just past the conveyor belt you are faced with an escalator. People ahead of me were in various stages of undress all the way up it and around the corners toward the gates where airport personnel in charge of customer satisfaction had most conveniently placed some chairs. Remember you are shoeless, dragging a bag or two which you have not had time to properly close, and holding your pants up like a hip-hopper.

So naturally I complained to Mr. B. that I was afraid that my sagging socks were going to get caught in the escalator.

“Do you want me to carry you?” he asked.

I checked the availability of his opposable thumbs, rolled my eyes and replied, “Not with the way you drop things.”