The Machinery of Night

Posted 2:36 PM by Angie Schultz

Thanksgroping

Niles is here for Thanksgiving. His plane was delayed for an hour with mechanical problems. And then for another hour, and another, and...for a total of seven hours. Which meant he didn't get to Honolulu until after midnight last night, and had to stay overnight in a hotel there. (And, more importantly, got me up at the simply UNGODLY hour of 8:30am to go fetch his keister from the airport. Though I did get some Krispy Kreme out of the deal.)

However, this story is about being groped by the TSA. I had already told him about Dave Barry's delicate condition (a "blurred groin"). He said he would try to avoid that, but in the end it proved to be his undoing (har)*.

He was told, as usual, to remove all metal from his pockets, but he retained his pen and comb in a front pocket, which blurred his frontal region and resulted in a pat down. He told them that the blurred images was because "a pen is in my pocket" (note the vital white space between the second and third words), and offered to remove it and go through the scanner again, but no. So they had to touch his privates in public, so that other travelers could watch, wondering which of the many middle-aged nerd terrorist groups he belonged to.

Apparently I owe him now for his ordeal.

* Except that, upon further inquiry, I discover that he didn't actually have to undo anything.