Travel Is Broadening (part one)

So, if you've been reading, then you know:  I did it.  I finally got on a plane again after 12 years, 12 years that encompassed one severe national tragedy involving airplanes, one effect of which has been the utter transformation of airport security into something rather more intricate than it was before, and one lower limb amputation which can only complicate my passage through said security.  And you know, I have to say, it didn't suck.

Now that I've passed out a couple of random souvenirs, I think it's time for me to talk about some of the practical stuff I learned on this trip as an amputee as well as some big personal stuff I learned just as me.

First, the big scary:  airport security.  Honestly?  Every single person I encountered treated me with professionalism at least, and usually kindness and humor on top of that.  It could easily have been that I was merely lucky, as usual.  Also, it should be borne in mind that I only went through two airport security checks, one at Boston's Logan Airport, and the other at the tiny Long Beach Airport in California.  However, I took the advice of many smart people and arrived not one hour early, which would have been more than sufficient 12 years ago, but two hours early.  As a result, at Logan I had time to

• run (lurch) to the nearest ATM when I realized I had left my cash at home and had nothing to pay the cab driver with

• stand in line at the Jet Blue counter when I realized that I had no freakin' clue how to check in my own bag even though I'd gone online and printed out my boarding pass in advance and been told it would be obvious what to do when I got to the terminal (and it was; I got in line)

• let a guy having a meltdown behind me in line go first

• organize myself at a café table

• go through airport security in the brave new world of the Transportation Security Agency for the first time ever

• do some stuff wrong in the going through of said airport security and wait patiently for it all to get fixed

• visit the airport Starbuck's

• powder my nose in an overcrowded ladies' room right before it stopped functioning altogether and had to be closed

• read a little bit of my aforementioned excellent, excellent Frida Kahlo book, but not as much as you might think

and all before getting on the plane.  It was great!  Well, it was perfectly okay.  I highly recommend doing it this way.

When I got to airport security, I was tired and nervous.  I had gotten up at 4:00 a.m. in order to get on a train leaving my town at 6:30, grab a cab at the end of the line (North Station in Boston), and be at the airport two hours before my 10:00 a.m. flight.  So I didn't really understand whatever the vidscreens and loudspeakers were trying to blare at me.  So when I got to airport security, I had to ask other passengers, "Wait, what are we supposed to put in the plastic bins?"

"Everything!" exclaimed the cheerful couple in front of me. 

Other people seemed to be separating out all their belongings and then putting them in the bins.  I didn't know why, and I didn't do this.  Of course, I had brought full size toiletries double wrapped in gallon size ziploc bags, but I was not attempting to board with them; I had put them in luggage which I checked.  My camera was hooked to my beltloop and I forgot to unhook it, same with my cellphone.  I also didn't think to remove my belt and put it in the bin.  I did notice people taking off their shoes, and remembered that I had been told to expect to have to as well.

"Oh, this is going to suck," I laughed, as I easily took off my left shoe but struggled to get my right one off my prosthetic foot without the benefit of a chair.  Finally I gave up, and called to one of the security guys, "Look, I'm sorry, but I can't get this shoe off unless I can sit down."

"Don't worry about it," he replied, waving me to come up to the little X-ray portal thingie.  I was wearing shorts, you see, so it was easy to discern why I might have difficulty with this.

I explained that I hadn't flown in 12 years and had no clue what to do.  The guy smiled and said, "It's okay.  We'll take care of you."  Then he showed me his hand which had been born with little stumps instead of fingers and said, "Welcome to the club."

"Why, thank you," I replied, laughing some more.  I laughed because I was surprised, but not offended or weirded out.

I waited at the madly beeping X-ray thing, and another security worker, a woman with a very friendly demeanor, came up to see what was going on.  She took one look at my leg and said, "Oh, gee, you think that might have some metal in it?"  She was smiling as she guided me over to a bench and asked me to wait a moment.

A nice blonde lady appeared with a wand.  She asked to see the bottom of my bare left foot.  She explained that I would not have to take the shoe off my prosthetic foot.  She explained that I would not have to disrobe, either, but she asked me to stand with my arms out crucifixion-style (my words, not hers) and said that she was going to wave the wand over me.  If it beeped, she would have to touch me lightly to see what was causing it.  She said she was also going to have to swab my socket, which turned out to mean just wiping my socket cover with a little white square of something or other -- paper, cotton, no idea what -- and then taking it off somewhere to be looked at by some machine.  She didn't say what the swabbing was for, and I didn't ask, but I am under the impression it is a routine search for residue from certain violence chemicals, like gunpowder.

While wanding, she discovered the cell phone, the camera, and the belt, and I apologized for not even thinking to take them off.  It was totally not a big deal; she simply handed them to another security person, who ran them through the X-ray machine, then put them on a table with my other belongings.  She also discovered the various metal parts of my leg, including the loops that connect my socket to my suspension belt, and it was easy for her to feel and me to explain what those were.

"You must run through a lot of pants," she remarked, noticing that everywhere I have poinky metal bits sticking out of my socket, for whatever reason, the fabric of my shorts was frayed.

"I do," I told her.

A word about those shorts.  Yes, I did buy them at my absolutely favorite place to buy pants, L. L. Bean.  They are the "original Bayside twill walking shorts, with comfort waist," and they are very, very roomy, even on me.  This means that I can easily lift the fabric to expose almost every bit of my socket, which makes it easy for the airport security people to see what I've got, and not too intrusive for me. 

In colder weather, I shall follow the example of experienced traveler and esteemed correspondent Jana and wear a skirt.  Pant legs tend not to be easily pulled up to one's upper thigh unless they are palazzo style, and who wants to travel in those?  And who wants to drop trou in front of a stream of fellow travelers?  Not I.  I have no need to show anyone what type of underwear I wear, the vagaries of my depilatory practices, or my best, most vividly obvious dimples of cellulite, and certainly not strangers who might have to sit next to me for thousands of miles.  So a skirt it shall be.  However, in cold weather I shall be wearing pantyhose or silk longjohns under that skirt, so at least there will be fabric of a sort between my chubby, fleshy thigh and the warm, textured plastic of my socket.

I don't know how long the whole process took, because I didn't look at my watch, because I wasn't in a screaming hurry, because I had plenty of time.  I think maybe it took ten minutes, from entering the line to walking away fully dressed and packed, but can't swear to it.  My security check on the return trip took even less time because I remembered to take everything off.

I'm going to break here so this doesn't get to long.  Questions?  Comments?  Contrary experiences to share?  As usual, feel free.  Having read relevant portions of the TSA site but also as many descriptions of other people's experiences as I could find (thank you, everyone) really did help me prepare for all of this, and I think getting even more out there can only be useful.

Comments

[elizabeth]

Have they imroved the area where you get searched - I travelled in the first year post 9/11 and they had this open marked area on the floor where the 400 people waiting for the x-ray machine could watch in interest to find out exactly what had made you terror worthy (as for me: I had to remove every clip or pin in my hair - but there was this present 'threat' of getting nudy in public - which was not so erotic)

Oh, you have won my "Best Writing of the Week Award" which comes with no cash or other prizes for your use of this phrase: "the vagaries of my depilatory practices" - How elegant you manage to make "so people see how hairy I might be" sound instead.

[Sara]

Heh heh -- glad you liked that.

As for privacy, you know, I honestly couldn't tell you whether the area has improved. I was completely visible to the stream of other passengers-to-be at all times, but I have heard of other people being offered the option of privacy. (Jana has a hair-raising story about being given privacy...in the employee break room. And then being walked in on while still getting dressed by an employee who had no idea she was still in there. And then complaining about this, quite appropriately, to the TSA.) I don't know what it takes for them to offer you privacy in the first place. I don't know if you have to request it.

On the return trip, after I'd been wanded and swabbed and patted down, I stood at the table where all the belongings are placed after being screened. I was putting on my belt and shoe next to an ordinary-looking, apparently able-boded guy putting on his belt and shoes next to an ordinary-looking, apparently able-bodied couple putting on their shoes, etc., and I said to the guy next to me, "Geez, this is just like being in a locker room," and he agreed. I don't really mind as long as we aren't actually stripping. In truth it's sort of equalizing, and as long as it is equalizing and not singling out on bigoted bases, that might even be exactly what certain travelers find particularly annoying.

At Logan I saw an Indian couple having their bags searched. I don't know if this is routine for travelers bearing foreign passports, if they were being racially profiled unfairly, if this was random, or if something in their bags had triggered this, but regardless of the reason, they were bearing the inconvenience with far better grace than a perfectly ordinary-looking (for Massachusetts), apparently able-bodied, middle-class and middle-aged white man who was asked to join me at the examination bench and acted like he had never in his life had to go through security before, and didn't they know he was a very important person with things to do and places to go, and oh, the nerve, and oh, the indignity. I haven't even flown in 12 years, and I expected far worse than any of us suffered, and certainly not for the security people to be so uniformly respectful and even affable, so I confess I was a little amused. He was like a living icon of privilege, and if I'd said so to him, he would have been pissed but also not really known what I was talking about.

[Michelle]

Sounds like it was all pretty painless, thank goodness. The only thing I'm wondering at this point though, is whether you had to pay extra for the swabbing of the socket. Sounds kinky ;)

[Sara]

So not kinky. Soooooo not. Sorry to pop that bubble. But think about somebody quickly swiping the fuselage of a motorcycle (or whatever it's called; that teardrop-shaped part right behind the handlebars) with a cotton ball and walking away. That's the level of engagement we're talking about here.

I'm sure someone somewhere has developed elaborate fantasies and roleplaying practices about airport security. It's a natural. Fortunately, though, such complications never entered into my actual experience!

[miz_geek]

I'm glad to hear that Logan was okay. In my experience, smaller airports tend to be nicer, if only because they aren't as busy and are dealing more with local folks. Although, sometimes the larger places are better because they've just got more experience with the whole process and it goes more smoothly, even when something out-of-the-ordinary happens.

I don't have any good stories to share. Apparently my father-in-law almost got himself arrested when he tried to bring a wine-country picnic basket on a plane. It contained something that could be used as a weapon - a corkscrew, maybe? But that's about it. It's just a longer, more annoying (and unnecessary) process these days.

Oh, and the swabbing is for some sort of explosive residue, I think. I've seen them run that little patch of fabric over luggage before. Last time we flew, we went through a big puff-of-air machine that somehow detected the same stuff, but from our entire bodies. Weird.

[Sara]

That's interesting. I have never seen the big puff-of-air machine. Where was that?

I know what you mean about small vs. large airports. What's funny about that is that the only person I met who wasn't smiling, who in fact seemed to take everything very, very seriously and would brook no pleasantries, was a woman at the smallest airport I visited, the Long Beach airport, and she was one of the people processing the luggage. She seemed to think we should all keep very serious and not smile, certainly not smile, and she made it a point to return no one's. She was professional enough, though, not mean or offensive, and just seemed to take her job very seriously, and also maybe to feel a bit extra-pressured that day.

It can't be easy dealing with a stream of predisposed-to-be-annoyed people every day, even such small streams as you find at such a small airport.

[Liz]

Oops, I've been remiss in checking comments. The puff-of-air machine was at Bradley (Hartford/Springfield). It's like a phone booth thing you stand it that goes "Poof" and blows air up your skirt (or whatever you happen to be wearing). Pretty soon we'll have the retinal scans.

I imagine the luggage area doesn't really bring out the best in people, so it would be hard to work there. Can you imagine having a job like that when you're having a bad day? Ugh.