Sunday, November 21, 2010

Submit or Don't Fly

Mom,

I am very, very proud of you that at 96 you are still flying, alone, across country. And I understand that you want to be in Virginia for Ali’s wedding this June. But I need to give you a heads-up here.

The drill has changed. No longer will struggling to remove your shoes be enough. No longer will surrendering your nutritional yogurt, because it’s a liquid, be enough. No longer will it be sufficient to give them your nice diamond nail file because you might threaten the flight crew with it.

This time you have a choice: you can submit to x-ray screening of your full body, or you can submit to a finger check of your breasts and genitals. I am not making this up.

Now, I know that you have a history of skin cancers on your face, but I still recommend that you go through the x-ray machine. Because if you choose the alternative, they WILL go through your panties, and they WILL object—trust me, I know these people—if you ask them to at least use a new glove, not the one they used for the 20-something hottie right ahead of you. Herpes you don’t need; at least basal cell carcinoma is curable with surgery.

There’s no plea bargaining on this one. They don’t care that our whole family was under the security microscope back when Dad was Research Group Leader at Cal-Tech, developing a part of the Manhattan Project. They don’t care that more than one member of our family still works for a highly responsible branch of the government. They don’t care that you are a 96-year-old great-grandmother simply trying to see your loved ones.

You will submit or you won’t fly. Pistole has said so. Napolitano has said so.

But it will get worse, I guarantee you. Wait until some swarthy stranger decides to blow himself up, mid-air, with a bomb up his rear.

Your daughter, Linda Morehouse