Since some last minute meeting plans came apart in San Francisco, I’m headed back to Los Angeles half a day early. This has involved two new experiences for me: flying standby, and secondary screening. Believe it or not, the former is more intimidating to me, because it amplifies the disconnect I feel between what is happening and what I knew I could expect.
I got to San Francisco Airport roughly 14 hours early for my hour-long flight, intending to move it up as early as possible to meet Roz in Los Angeles. The woman on the phone with me last night at the airline assured me that this would be fine, and that there was lots of space on an early flight, and they would work it out for me. Obviously, though, when I asked about the same ‘wide open’ flight this morning, it had been cancelled. Nevertheless, I was issued a standby ticket, then allowed into the security checkpoint, where a very cool guy in airport security indicated that I had been selected for secondary screening by scribbling on a line of SSSSSS’s on my ticket with a pink highlighter.
The most recent story I had heard about secondary screening at an airport was from Roz, who was confronted in a private interview by US Customs about her travel plans when it was revealed that she had no fixed date of return to Canada. No one ever seems to have a story about an easy session at security, but, for the record, here’s mine:
Another cool guy in an official jacket in the screening area asked me where I was headed, looking at the pink highlighter on my ticket.
“L.A.,” I said.
“Through there, please. Close your eyes.”
What?, I thought.
I walked into a small booth which looked like a metal detector with clear plastic doors, closed my eyes suspiciously, and was showered in compressed air from all directions. Then, the doors opened, and that was it.
I was frisked by a pneumatic robot.
I looked back at the screening area before walking forward, through the plastic doors, but no one was even looking at me. The robot had evidently determined that I was not a threat.