While driving to work yesterday a radio show discussed the body scan machine at the airport. I never really thought about it before but gained a brand new perspective.
I don’t ever, ever want to have an airport body scan.
My fear of airport checkpoints is not a new one. Several years ago I was stopped by a very kind, elderly man. I’d set off the alarm and after walking through it several times he apologetically told me I’d need to step aside so they could perform a full body search. Almost immediately I was patted down by a complete stranger. Finding zero guns, knives, grenades, or ridiculously dangerous fingernail clippers, he pulled out the search wand and continued the search. It kept going off right around my butt. The kind man asked if I was wearing a belt and I said no. Change? No. Keys? No. He kept waving the wand around my butt (which was quite awkward) and then the color drained from my face. Just as he was about to lead me to another room (God knows what they were going to do to me there), I said in a voice barely above a whisper, “I think it’s my underwear.” The 90-year-old's face was priceless. He turned to his co-worker and said, “She’s free to go!” And that was that.
(Editor interjection: It was quite innocent underwear. I’d go into detail but I doubt you care and it’s none of your business anyway.)
To learn that a body scan image is basically a nude photo of you is disturbing. Apparently the original image looks like a negative, but if you reverse it you could be the next star in a nudey magazine. And while I’d like to think all airport workers are nice and honest, statistics tell me at least one of them has the morals of an alley cat.
Michael and I are flying to Florida sometime in the next three months (take that, thief reading my blog in hopes to rob our house) and if I’m directed to the body scan machine at either airport I will, I repeat, will throw up.
I am all for airport safety but this seems a bit excessive, don’t you think? The joke was to put a gun in your pants to keep the workers from seeing you naked. Starting to think it’s not a terrible idea…
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4 comments:
I recently flew to Dallas from Kansas City to visit my mom and I was NOT HAPPY to find the body scanners at KCI. Do a lot of terrorist plots begin in the Midwest?? I have not heard of them if they do...Anyway, the scan was painless, but I still can't help but think the shot could end up on the security office wall...creepy...
Note to daughter:
1) Avoid underwire garments
2) Avoid all jewelry
3) Avoid any decorative metal
4) Avoid anything with a hood
5) Avoid eyeshadow with glimmer
6) Avoid belts (see 3 above)
7) Avoid eating before hand
8) Avoid jeans with a zipper (3)
9) Bind your chest
10) Revisit your southern drawl
In the U.S., you can choose not to do the body scan and opt to do the metal detector and a physical pat down. I fully plan on choosing the second option if asked. It's just too creepy to think what they could do with those scans.
I'm still mad that we have to take off our shoes! let alone a full body scan. Stupid terrorists ruin it for everyone!
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