AIRPORT PAT-DOWNS

TSA AIRPORT PAT-DOWNS

NOVEMBER 18, 2010. In case you’re living inside a tree, I’ll mention that US airports are now doing full body scans of passengers, and apparently there is a radiation risk, or there might be a radiation risk, or there is no risk, or the risk is “minimal.”

I found a TSA employee a few blocks away from LAX selling tinfoil hats. Business was brisk. But that’s another story.

If you decline the scan, because you don’t like the health odds, or because you object to having your nude photo taken and distributed on the internet, you can opt for the pat-down.

This is a same-sex grope. Unless the TSA employee is a transsexual. In that case, you construct your own definition of what is happening.

Now, having read stories about disgruntled passengers who didn’t appreciate their “junk” being shaken by strangers in an airport, I have come to the following conclusion:

Soon, there will be an incident of sexual intercourse.

And the TSA employee who carried out this form of inspection will say, “It depends on what the definition of ‘is’ is.”

Someone with a cell phone will capture the act on video, and it will garner 500 million hits in the first six hours.

ABC will win the sweepstakes, and having paid the victim four million dollars, Diane Sawyer will do the sensitive interview.

Drudge will discover the victim is a divorced mom with three kids from Cleveland—and moonlights on the side as a hooker.

She will say (but not to Diane Sawyer), “That was the most expensive trick I ever turned—by a long shot.”

Diane, however, will offer, in a low breathy voice: “We know at least one terrorist who had a bomb in his anus, so we must ask, was it only vaginal sex in the airport?”

And the mom/hooker will reply: “If I had gone for the anal, you guys would be paying me ten million for the interview.”

Homeland Security will, upon consideration, issue a release: “Sex is probably the best way to determine whether a terrorist intends to board a plane.”

During this entire episode, President Obama will be visiting US troops in Guam. He will spend a week with a little-known tribe rehearsing a rain dance.

Hillary Clinton will be aboard a space shuttle orbiting Earth.

In Washington DC, several groups will issue statements demanding a gay and lesbian pat-down option.

Unobserved, Osama Bin Laden will fly commercial from JFK to LAX, making stops in Columbus, Houston, Phoenix, and San Diego.

An Al Jazeera story will escape notice: “Today, leaders of the Wahabi sect announced the launch of a new air service in the United States. Traversing a variety of local routes, the commercial planes will accept only Islamic passengers, and will be flown and serviced by Islamic crews. Explosion Airlines is set to debut in March of 2011.”

JON RAPPOPORT