Apparently, I AM a terrorist... (airplane rant)

I’ve come to the conclusion that I must be a terrorist. Why, you might ask would this late 20, tall, blonde, blue eyed, fishbelly-whiteskinned woman be considered a terrorist. Well, it’s the logical conclusion when I ALWAYS get searched at the damned airport. And usually I get searched at both the inital security point and by the individual airline folks before boarding?!

Fine, national gaddamn security, blah blah blah I AM SICK AND TIRED OF IT!

Some background:

I travel a lot, both for fun and work. Many times I use Southwest as they have a regional hub here in Dallas. I always carry my luggage on. I am a very adept packer and can fit all my stuff in a carry-on.

Inevitably, when going through security, they pick me to do the search–the physical one, not for my bag. Mind you I NEVER set off the metal detector, yet they still pick ME. So it’s spread-em whil they use the hand wand. Yes, it’s usually a woman doing it, but the men like to stand and leer–esepecially when it comes to making sure the metal on your brastraps is in fact on your brastraps (the little buckle thingy). I suspect that they do this thing to all of the well-built female passengers. No, I don’t have an ego-complex. I am pretty and I am BUILT (I work goddamned HARD at it). It happens about 90% of the time to me.

Then, for some reason on Southwest, if you buy a one-way ticket or buy a ticket within an hour of departure, there is an almost guaranteed chance of getting searched. Moreover, once you get your ticket, you know you’re going to be searched if you have a checkerboard pattern. Here’s a clue you fuckwhistles, you’ve had this policy in effect almost since 9/11 do you think even the most dimwitted of terrorists wouldn’t CATCH ON?!?!

Not only is there a physical search, but there’s also a bag search, too. Again, the hand wand search with touching of metal beneath my clothes (buckles on belts, too) but now you are GOING TO GO THROUGH MY STUFF IN ALMOST FULL VIEW OF EVERY OTHER PASSENGER?! Do I fucking have ANY privacy to pack what I want? And I’ve had them comment on what I have in my luggage…

Well this past Monday was the last straw…

I had driven down to Austin with my boyfriend for the weekend and flew back EARLY Monday morning on Southwest. Inevitably, I was checked at the inital checkpoint, then I looked at my ticket…there was the FLURKING checkerboard pattern indicating that I was to be checked again. ARGH! But this time, there was a problem…

Note that I mentioned a weekend in Austin with my boyfriend. It was a FUN weekend…both in and out of bed. I had brought a few toys with me…namely my mini vibrator (small but phallus shaped) and my…

wait for it

Thai Jelly Butt Beads

Mid you they aren’t exactly like the Baby Jesus Butt Plug, but they are purple and hard (no string just smaller jelly in between the beads). It is DAMN clear what these are for.

So I call the boyfriend, “What do I do, they’re going to search me, they’ll find IT.” I frantically whisper into my cell phone. The woman next to me is trying VERY hard to appear NOT to be listening…I glance at her and then see the sign next to me “REPORT ALL SUSPICIOUS ACTIVITY TO AIRPORT SECURITY” and she is pulling out her cell phone.

FUCK, the airport security is coming to get me.

Oh God, it’s going to be like the Delta incident with the womans dildo, OGOD.

Boyfriend tells me to throw IT away. However, now any trashing of something from my luggage will GUARANTEE that this woman calls security.

Then, I decided to FUCK IT, no not IT, I just decided not to care. So as the female searcher was searching my person, the male searcher searched my bag and placed everything out on the table…including IT. Several gasps could be heard, but I stood tall, proud of my anal fetish. It was eventually replaced in my bag and returned to me sans eye contact from him. He immediatley changed gloves (it WAS clean) and then watched me from the corner of his eye while I boarded.

In an almost full plane, I sat alone on my row…no one dared sit next to me.

So, when you hear about a crazy woman lawyer getting arrested at the airport for failure to allow a search, you’ll know that it was me, and that, most likely, I had ummmm toys in my bag.

This post made me sick.

I mean, really, Thai Jelly Butt Beads?

Doesn’t anybody buy American any more?

[sub]I’m Canadian, but I love that joke[/sub]

Didn’t you know, Jeanie, that attractive women are part of the terrorist profile? You just “fit the description”! :rolleyes:

Whenever I bring my videocamera onto a plane, they make me turn the thing on to make sure it’s for real. I also read about a woman who was told to drink her expressed breastmilk, which she was bringing on the plane for her baby, at the checkpoint, to make sure it wasn’t poison. Did they make you turn on your vibrator? Verify that those really are anal beads and not some oddly-shaped explosive? :wink:

Seriously, sorry you have to go through all that. Especially the last go-round. Maybe this is only in the Seattle airport, but isn’t it possible to ask the security folk to search your stuff out of the general view? I’m sure you’re not the only one to bring her toys… But really, the extremes to which these security people go at the checkpoints are pretty close to petty abuses of their newfound power. Thanks to lots of paranoia (some of it justified, some not), they’ve found that anything goes, and they suddenly have a lot more power than they used to. Though I’m sorry to hear that some of them abuse that power, I can’t say I’m surprised.

Well, hell, I’d pick you, too, with that description of yourself you gave in the OP.

:smiley:

Have you already won?

Yep. That’s a trifecta in the computer to get you searched. Pay cash and the chances go up even more. That’s on all airlines, though Southwest is the only one that I know of using the stupid checkerboard. In fairness to them, that’s only the guaranteed searches – there are additional searches, too, particularly among the “B” and (when used) “C” boarding groups.

All that said, I have a sneaking suspicion that your looks may have something to do with it, too. I’ve noticed that a disproportionate number of people getting searched are attractive women. My girlfriend has been searched a lot more than I have, and I look much more terroristic than she does. :wink:

I’d like to see an investigative magazine check this out. Wouldn’t surprise me a bit to find that some of these guys were getting their jollies while they’re supposed to be doing their jobs.

They search you because you are a hot woman - plain & simple.

The military base I work on does “random” vehicle searches as you drive onto base. None of my male co-workers have been searched yet (I’ve asked them). I’ve been stopped 3 times in less than a year.

Same thing at the airport. I traveled in both October & November to two different places and was “randomly” searched both times.

And the fact that it’s a woman searching me does not make it OK to grope my breasts to “make sure it’s an underwire setting the wand off”. The underwire is under my breasts - not there in the center where you have just grabbed me.

Way to show them! I have been too scared to bring my toys lately.

Jeanie,

Don’t feel like the lone ranger. My last trip to Vegas I am getting the full cavity search while I watch the Aytollah walk right on the freaking plane. National security is a joke. If your not going to racially profile dump the whole program.

Pity that wouldn’t have caught John Walker Lindh. Or the “shoe bomber”. Or Timothy McVeigh, if he’d have decided to use a plane. Or drug smugglers, or other random nutjobs that want to cause trouble/bring disallowed items on a plane - you know, there are other bad people besides Al Qaeda members out there who take planes. But hey, sure, go ahead with your idea…

Back on topic, if I get grabbed in an area of the breast that’s not my underwire, I’m probably going to exclaim loudly about it. Might as well embarrass other folks while I’m at it.

The sex toys thing sounds like a good way to not have to get crammed next to other folks, on planes that don’t have assigned seating. :smiley:

Ferret,

I am not saying that we should drop our security I am saying if the guy looks like a potential terrorist he should be searched extra well. Works for Israel, it will work for us. Your telling me that scumbag John Walker Lindh or that shoe bomber wouldn’t have been picked out of a croud. I beg to differ. Truth is that 99% of terrorist acts are commited by young middle eastern men and they should be consistantly searched.

What I’m saying is Lindh is a white American citizen (born here), and the “shoe bomber” (Richard… Reid?) is half black, half white, and of English citizenship. If they weren’t trying to stand out in a crowd, they sure wouldn’t. We can’t afford to give people a pass just because they aren’t of “Middle Eastern” descent, especially because airlines are still screening for other crimes besides being a “Middle Eastern terrorist”.

I do feel for Jeanie though - it looks like she trips the “check 'em” requirements for many airlines, and then her good looks don’t help matters.

Perhaps it was the god awful Brett Favre jersey you were wearing that indicated there was something OFF about you :wink:

I was searched ‘vigorously’ in June to the point that I was barefoot and my overall shorts were UNDONE so they could properly scan the buckles.

And that was two WOMEN doing it.

Re the racialy profiling thing…I can’t help but think it might be a good idea to search individuals of middle eastern decent, but then I realize that it’s only because I’m not OF middle eastern decent and that it could lead to a very slippery slope. But, maybe only MEN should get searched since y’all are the baddies (please note jokiness!)

::worried a bit that I sound arrogant in OP::

I’m merely pretty…and not even close to amazingly so…I think it’s the body thing, but I notice that very often it IS the attractive women who get searched…

C’mon ** Jar ** you know they wanted to see the girls :slight_smile:

The worst part of me being searched like that was that my parents were just outside the gate to see me off, and naturally my mother was ready to tear through the crowd screaming,

“LEAVE MY PUDDIN’ ALONE!”*

*odd since she doesn’t call me puddin’

Tell the whole truth, now. They’re most likely to pick you on the days you’re wearing socks with holes in 'em. :stuck_out_tongue:

After reading this thread, I’m happier than ever that I don’t wear underwire bras. Yikes.

First of all, BottledBlondJeanie, that really sucks and I admire your patience and fortitude. also,

cite? :smiley:
Further, and not to get all GD here, but

Cite? :rolleyes:

Binarydrone, I can totally vouch for BBJ’s hotness. :wink:
BBJ,

Pfft. “merely” - whatever. You’re very attractive & I think that’s precisely why you get “randomly” searched so frequently.

Yes, one way tickets, last minute tickets, cash purchases and not checking baggage raise your chances but, I have yet to see a man being groped the way women are by airport security.

I wonder how often Vin Diesel gets searched.