Shuffling

Five-and-a-half years after 9/11, I no longer feel like a terrorist each time I board a plane.

A combination flying hundreds of times since then and accepting metal dectectors, pat-downs, limitations on personal items and prying eyes as part of one's life when one lives in the nation's capital, have rendered me immune to the indignity of airports.

Yesterday, I stood in line to declare myself sane, safe and compliant as I did the silent ritulistic dance for the TSA.

Lean on right foot, balance, untie shoe on left foot. Slide shoe off.
Lean on left foot, balance, untie shoe on right foot. Slide shoe off.
Squat. Pick up shoes.
Rifle through purse for contraband that escaped being relegated to a 32oz. plastic zipper bag.
Remove plastic bag of contraband from other carry-on items.
Shuffle forward.
Remove gray bins.
Try not to think about the grime now attaching itself to the bottom of the socks.
Shuffle. Shuffle. Plunk. Plunk. Plunk.
Pat thighs, hips before realizing there are no pockets with hidden dangerous items.

It's a communal bonding experience that now causes people to sigh in frustration after behing stuck behind the non-English-speaking business traveler on his way to JFK who has failed to remove his laptop, and is now grinding the entire procession to a precarious stop. Sighing because anyone travelling with a laptop, in theory, travels enough to remember it is on the list of 'suspect' items. It is a bonding that causes one man, seeing a mother traveling alone with an infant, to help her in her shuffle as she places items on the belt and struggles to hold the infant while collapsing the stroller that must be scanned as well. It is a bonding that keeps people patient as the security screener hand inspects the infant formula of another woman's child. It is a bonding that ignites sparks of conversation about the process, the world, a vacation ended or just beginning.

We shuffle through, stripped to the barest of necessities, hurrying to claim our positions on the other side and reverse the dance back into human sophistication.

Resignation has replaced indignity. Acquiescence has replaced challenge.

Like lemmings to a cliff, we shuffle forward, sighing a breath of relief we aren't yet all confined to checking everything or bringing nothing and traveling in our birthday suits.