Apparently the airport security people are trained to look at your face to see if you are twitching like a terrorist. I don’t know this for sure, but they always take a deliberate look at me after checking my boarding pass. I figure they must have taken the one-hour course on identifying bad people by their body language. So I try to put on my most natural expression – the one that says “I am not a terrorist. I am just passing through. There is no reason to detain me.” I also think those thoughts really hard just in case I’m a Jedi and no one ever told me.
But I worry that a fake innocent look is exactly what a terrorist would use. I’m not a good actor. When I smile to have my picture taken it looks totally unnatural. It doesn’t even look like a smile. It’s more of a grimace mixed with a note of surprise and perhaps a dash of intestinal discomfort. So when I act “natural” for the airport security, I have some serious doubts that I look natural at all.
Then I start imagining that the security guy is acting natural himself while actually thinking something along the lines of “When this obvious terrorist turns around I will try to kill him with a single blow. I might get some sort of bonus.” So the two of us are locked in this Academy Award losing acting moment where I am pretending to be a guy who is NOT pretending to NOT be a terrorist while the security guy is pretending to be a guy who is not planning to kill me. It’s a long moment.
Then the security guy writes something on my boarding pass. It looks like maybe an initial or some sort of code. I worry that this code is what will cause the other security people to swarm me at the metal detector when I am most vulnerable. I sometimes consider modifying the little code while I’m in the next line. But since I don’t know the codes, I could end up accidentally changing the “innocent traveler” code to the “Bin Laden KILL KILL KILL” code.
So I don’t alter the code. But I still spend a moment before passing through the metal detector wondering what it feels like to be Tazered and beaten with batons at the same time. I figure it’s only a matter of time before I find out.