Hygenic Profiling

If you haven’t traveled recently on the airlines, be prepared. The planes are packed and often overbooked. Folks are asked to try a later flight, but the odds of getting on even later flights seem dim due to overbooking there, too. Heck, if the airlines aren’t making money now, they never will. Damn plane is packed with people. We’re sardines, one and all. There seem to be all kinds of nerds with that Bluetooth hands-free microphone thing strapped to their ear, shouting directions to their secretaries as we sit on the tarmac. Miserable. Now I know how these airlines have good on-time departures: they load everybody up, then pull over to an edge of the taxi-way, and shut down the engine.

“We’ve been notified that air traffic control has delayed our take-off. We’ll be here another hour, so you can use your cell phones.” Well, I chose to blog. I love my Treo.

A funny thing happened through the pre-flight screening. I had taken am opened implantable cardiac defibrillator in my bag. Here’s a picture of it:



Now it was amazing to me that this little device, with its battery, large capacitors that can charge to 800 volts, electronics, on-board computer... this would be ignored in a carry-on bag. Yep - went right through - no questions asked. But this, my friends, stopped traffic:



My trusty well-used toothpaste container placed in my zip-lock baggie: stopped, inspected, examined, delayed the line.

I am convinced this is “hygenic profiling.” You know, stopping to examine my toothpaste for no good reason. Poor toothpaste! Minding its own business, soaking up the xray radiation, and BAM! Some guy stops the conveyor belt to examine the contents while completely ignoring my defibrillator and its electronic contents.

Shows you what they're interested in these days...

Have fun at Thanksgiving time!

-Wes