Just in time for the Thanksgiving travel crunch, new security measures at airports have caused officials to raise the color-coded passenger irritability threat advisory. You need to be alert to this if you are planning to fly.
Not to be confused with the better-known security threat advisories, the passenger irritability advisory had been pink (flushed cheeks) but is now red and white (red face with steam coming out of the ears).
While the latest alert is not yet black (nimbus cloud with lightning over passenger's head), it is in everybody's interests that the alert slides down the scale to lavender (cute smile and teddy bear in carry-on).
So today, as a public service, I have volunteered to clear up some public misconceptions for the good folks at the Transportation Security Administration, who could do it themselves if they were not so busy inspecting the grand pianos that passengers hope to fit in the overhead bins.
As the Associated Press reports, "Annoyance at security hassles has been on the rise among airline crews and passengers for years, but the widespread use of full-body image detectors this year and the simultaneous introduction of more intrusive pat-downs seems to have ramped up the frustration."
A software engineer named John Tyner fed the fire of public discontent when he wrote in his blog that he had been ejected from the San Diego airport. He said he had been threatened with a fine and lawsuit for refusing a groin check after turning down a full-body scan. He said he told a TSA worker, "If you touch my junk, I'm gonna have you arrested."
Beyond providing what we can agree is the best quote of the year, this incident illustrates the problem. Some people just come to the airport with a my-junk-is-superior-to-thine attitude.
Mr. Tyner, TSA workers do not want to touch your junk. They are doing their duty. Nobody would be interested in touching your junk if it were not for the jackass terrorist who tried to blow up his underpants and the plane they were flying in. The threat from foreign underpants is real.