Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Dodging a [very slow moving] Bullet

I'm sure this will get the Fed's pounding on the door.  So I'm asking now for all my "Fed" friends to give me the heads up so I can at least put on a stylish outfit so I'm photo ready when I'm dragged to Guantanamo.

Anyway, I recently returned from a trip to Florida.  I don't normally go to Florida but I had to.  Clearly I flew.  The train takes about 27 hours and driving isn't much quicker.  So, as I said, I flew.

If you've been reading my randomly timed posts you know my feelings on flying.  More specifically, you know my feelings about airline security or the complete lack thereof in this country.

Back to my story.

The flight down was out of JFK.  Jet Blue.  No full [waste of time] body [pointless] scanners that couldn't find a bomb in an ass crack if it was labeled. I knew this ahead of time so I barely thought about it.  The flight home however was a mystery.

Fast forward.. the trip was fine, the weather was lovely, not much pool time didn't even break out the bikini.  Next time.  There I am going through the hugely disorganized line called security. I've been trying for days now to come up with a witty interpretation of what TSA really stands for but "Bungling Group of Untrained Idiots That Got Fired From 7-11" doesn't fit. None-the-less... there I am in line.

It takes about three minutes once I am in view of the F[WoT]B[P]S's for me to figure out the "random selection" process. Each line feeds one of those carry on luggage x-ray conveyor belt machines.  Between every two lines stands a metal detector and a scanner.  The process is simple; it takes 3 seconds to go through a metal detector and 3 minutes to go through a scanner.  Whenever the scanner is free the next person gets picked to go through.  Very scientific and random.  It's fool proof! No Terrorist could ever get past it.

Thank Jebus I'm not a terrorist.  (Seriously, Thanks Rachel.  I don't know what I would do without that expression.)

I said it took me three minutes to figure it out.  In another minute I had done the math and determined I had about an 80% chance of being tapped for the scanner.

I'll cut to the end.  I didn't go through the scanner. Nor did I ask to be fondled and groped by a government pervert.

Here's how I did it.  Here's how I dodged the scanner I was "randomly selected" for.  It required a quarter...

Just as I stepped away from the x-ray conveyor belt I paused and patted my pocket as if I had a sudden thought; "My Pocket! What if there is something in there! Goodness!" I paused again and slowly reached into my pocket to pull out the quarter. I placed it quickly into my bin and turned back to the TSA officer.  Sure enough, they simply took the next person from the other line to go through the scanner.

Yup.  I feel safe.

Now there is no guarantee that every airport in the country uses the same fool proof brilliant plan to catch terrorists, but I'm willing to bet I can get past all of them.  Has anyone else realized that TSA has never in  it's history (that I could find) caught or stopped a single terrorist?  The FBI, CIA and Secret Service all have and they don't use scanners.  They use intelligence and research.  Interesting.