Have A Nice Flight...

A few short months after September 11, 2001, I was passing through Atlanta, and missed my connection. The airline, miraculously, gave me a hotel room (in the worst flea bag that I have ever seen) and a $5.00 voucher for a meal. They also put me on the first flight out the next morning, in First Class.

As I rushed to the airport the following morning, I was behind this woman at the initial security checkpoint. She showed her boarding pass and was on her way, swiftly and without delay or intrusion. I, on the other hand, was turned out--wanded, patted down, and forced to unpack my carry-on luggage.

Madame Burqa looks like, well, one of the 72 virgins that Atta and the boys got on September 12th. I, on the other hand, look not unlike Captain America. Your typical WASP.

So, as I am walking through the airport, drinking my coffee and thinking about the indignity that I have just endured, I see Madame Burqa again. She is walking to my gate. She, apparently, is going to Boston, and I am a little put out by this. Not because I couldn't take her down if she went Richard Reid on me, but because I had just been searched, while this woman waltzed on through the metal detectors.

At the gate, the flight is called, and since I am in First, I get up to board.

Gate Agent: "Excuse me, sir? You have been selected for secondary security screening. Please take off your shoes. May I go through your bag?"

Me [meekly]: "Sure, go ahead."

And as I am being searched, Madam Burqa walks on the plane, with nary a second glance.

Me: "Um. Why am I being searched while Madame Burqa just gets on the plane?"

GA: "We don't profile." [I am not making this up.]

Me: "How do you know that the person under the burqa is the person whose ID you check? Do you make it lift the veil?"

GA: "It?"

Me: "How do you know it is a woman? I mean some people are just downright sneaky about this stuff."

GA: "You are being searched [and I am still not making this up] because you are flying First Class (true) to Boston (also true) and that is where the 9/11 hijackers were sitting."

I wanted to say: "What? I thought you said you didn't profile. You just did. Except, in trying to appear as though you don't profile, you did."

But, since I wanted to get to Boston direct (and not via some tiny-ass detention cell at Hartsfield), I said nothing. I just prepared myself to take down Madame Burqa if she so much as got out of her seat to use the lav.

"Cocktail, please."