Now with the economic downturn, I don’t travel so much (if you discount the epic sojourns below Manhattan everyday).
Recently, I was travelling and stayed in a ni-i-i-i-ice hotel (as in ahhhhh, this is like 2006).
Coming home was a hassle. Because of weather and work I had to change my flight constantly (actually, my assistant who has the patience of the Muslim equivalent of a saint changed the flights constantly).
I was tagged by Homeland Security precisely because I changed flights so many times in a short time period. I was put into one of those orgasmatrons (for those of you who saw the movie, Sleeper) that works like a fully body glaucoma test (spirts of air all over) and then all of my belongings were tested for trace explosives. A woman with gloves literally aired my dirty laundry as she looked for trace evidence. The episode reminded me of the time I was maybe 7 years old and my great aunt Fanny held up “panties” (that word makes me shudder to this day) that she bought me as a GIFT. A gift of panties from your great aunt Fanny is not something from which one recovers. Ever. I wondered whether there was a stress counselor on premises. For me, it is a worse horror show than Wife of Chucky. But I digress. So everyone around saw what I wore on my trip. No fancy lingerie so it was not THAT kind of trip. Yet, I am not sure if I am ok with everyone’s so quickly getting bored with the display and moving on with their lives. No garter, no crowd, I guess is the lesson I learned.
There was a woman who refused to take off her bangle-like serpentine
bracelet. She was in the middle-aged, over-tanned white woman demographic.
Her answer was that she travels so much, if she kept taking it off, she
would have to bend it to the point of breaking. When the security officer asked if she would take it off for $1,000,000 she said that she had had a gold version and she took it off because she had a gun pointed to her head and that now she downgraded to silver. Ok too much information and totally non-responsive. She saw my stunned look and mistook it for the horror of what happened rather than the horror of having to know so much about her life. So, she started to go into detail and so I had to say that I had all the information I ever wanted about her bracelets.
Eventually, I passed the checkpoint with those stellarly trained TSA personnel. Same people who, in 2002, made my then 74 year-old mother with metastatic breast cancer (and looked it) take off her wig. Because a dirty bomb would have been under her wig.
Finally I was able to proceed to the departure lounge (a misnomer, but for another blog entry). Ok, there is a guy openly, unashamedly and unabashedly reading a girlie magazine. Not Penthouse or Playboy, but cleavage is wildly evident on the cover. But wait, it’s a woman! It is San Francisco after all. This is not a gay/straight issue (it can’t be because I am gay). This is a generational issue. This is an I remember Stonewall and life in the closet and you don’t generation gap issue. I do know (because I hold on to some pretense of hipness) I am not supposed to use a pronoun which presumes a gender designation but, REALLY, if you want people to get it right then wear a gender tag. Like, “Hi, my gender is ________.” Oy, another digression. The good news was that at least I didn’t have to worry about guys doing guy things when they see scantily clad women. I’ll leave it there. And yes, I have seen that on planes, airports and even sitting on the sidewalk in Manhattan, so don’t get me started.
