as some of you know, i had been in indy the past week and a half and in order to get there quickly, i chose to fly.
the phoenix airport was not bad. moved pretty quickly through all the checkpoints. don't know whether it was because of the time of day or whether they're just good at moving people.
got searched at both the x-ray machine as i entered the boarding area and at the gate. as the lady takes my boarding pass, she waves me on through and then says, "oh, i forgot, you need to step over here. you've been randomly selected for a security search." yeah, right. except that it wasn't random. i had a one way ticket (didn't know when i'd be returning so didn't have roundtrip). the guy searching through my bag and purse didn't even search it. just sort of rifled through the top layers.
what a waste of time.
upon my return to phoenix at the indy airport, i waited in the longest line just to pass through the machines. i think a lot of that is because indy's airport is small and the layout makes everybody pass through the same machines. they only searched people at the machines if they set off the alarm. but i did get "randomly selected" again at the GATE. i knew i would, again having a one-way ticket. so this time i packed my underwear right on top so the person searching would have to touch it! [:D] it was a guy and you could tell it caught him off guard. hee hee hee! i also told him i didn't really mind the search, though i didn't think it would do any good, but i did mind that they lied to me. "what lie?" he said. i replied, "the random lie. i didn't get randomly picked. you people took one look at my one-way ticket and thought for some stupid reason that i needed to be searched. as if only hijackers take one-way flights." he didn't look happy but didn't say anything.
the whole irony is that because of their search i actually had ideas about how the bad guys could get on board with "contraband". the whole thing is inept.
on a more positive note, i did manage to open the eyes of one lady when we discussed the searches. i told her this: "imagine two different airlines, one which allows passengers things like nail files, knives, etc. and one that doesn't. which plane do you think the terrorists would want to use to take?" she nodded, knowing full well which would it would be. then i asked her, "so what have we done by all of this crap? we've given the terrorists that much more ease in taking planes because they know the passengers are defenseless. and THAT's what irks me about not being able to carry a knife on the plane. the airlines have left the passengers completely and utterly defenseless."
she nodded, saying, "i've never thought of it that way before."
heeheehee. another one coming around!