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Sara Conrad

Editor, skirt! Jacksonville

I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. I love thinking and talking about feminism and writing for skirt!. I went to the University of Iowa and I'll put up a good fight about spelling. ...

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stripping for airport personnel

I used to love flying. I went to college out of state and one of my biggest thrills was enjoying an entire day  at the airport every few months to travel from Iowa (go Hawkeyes!) to California (my then home), or vice versa. I ate fried food and read fashion mags and tabloids and no one was there to tell me I’d be better off eating my greens and sticking my nose in a good piece of literature. Not even myself. It was the closest I got to guilt-free living each year.

But now that the airports have strapped down and our threat level is Orange, flying isn’t so fun or convenient (ha!) as it used to be. Not being able to pack lip gloss, lotion, deodorant, a bottled water, eye-drops, or Purell in my purse to carry-on throws me into a mini-panic, being both a hypochondriac (my mother diagnosed me) and high-maintenance passenger who becomes grumpy with chapped lips and red eyes.

I think the lowest point is taking off my shoes and socks for the security check-point. That can’t be sanitary. Can I file a complaint for getting athlete’s foot? Does anyone else feel a little less dignified when taking off a coat, sweater, or whatever might be covering your t-shirt under the gaze of at least  three men staring you down in a public line? I feel like I’m essentially stripping for the airport personnel, watching my like hawks as I bend over to unzip my boots. Then I endure fun commentary like, “You have any lip gloss in that bag of yours, miss? You look like the type to carry lip gloss.”  What does that mean? Is that harassment or just unwanted flirtations from old men? (And is that the same thing?)

What really gets my teeth grinding in the throes of check-point chaos is that no matter how agitated I become from airport personnel commentary, I can’t say a damn sassy word back, because as the crisp-speaking woman over the loudspeaker clearly warns, “You can and will be arrested for any inappropriate comments.” Sweet. I bet my parents would love to see me come home to the holidays in handcuffs. So I can be arrested for being a smart-ass, but can they?

So I bite my tongue hard as I pass through the metal detector when the man at the other end smirks at me and gives me a once-over, and say “thank you” when a security guard tells me I look like the type to carry lip gloss, when what I would have liked to say is more along the lines of  “Excuse me?” or “Not a chance in hell, buddy” to the man awaiting my metal-free body (do underwire bras count?) to appear stripped on the other side.

But maybe I’m just a high maintenance passenger. You know, the kind that would carry lip gloss.