Recently I had to book a flight for a trip to Orlando FL to be with my son who was having surgery.
I was planning to fly out of Charleston. Charleston airport is really passenger friendly. It is easy to maneuver through the check-in and security lines. Because the airport is rather small, it is compact and easy to find quick meals and snacks. It’s also convenient that any gate is not too far off. But the Orlando airport is a different story.
I had never had the opportunity to visit that airport before so when my plane touched down, I found myself in a giant mall near a baggage claim. The whole place is very confusing. It is quite similar in structure to the Pentagon. If you enter from the street, once you pass the ticket counters you find yourself inside a mega food court. It resembles any food court you have ever seen at a mall. First, let me point out the Charleston airport has snack foods, sandwiches, one expensive restaurant, and a Burger King. But the Orlando airport has Italian, Chinese, and Japanese food, a variety of restaurants, and a Chick-fil-A. It also has trendy shops and stores.
Branching outwards from the food court are wings or hallways that lead to security. Once through security you must take a monorail to a section of gates. From there, you walk to an assigned gate for your flight. There are several monorails, so you can imagine just how many gates and flights there are.
After my arrival at the airport, I decided to get something to eat. So I grabbed some Italian food and sat down to watch people.
I enjoyed watching the mother with three small children and a husband pulling suitcases behind him. One of the toddlers was laying across the suitcase fast asleep. The husband and wife looked exhausted while the other two kids who were running around with lollipops looked fresh as daisies.
A mother walked in with her daughter who looked to be about 18. Evidently this was the daughter’s first flight and she was off to college. In a loud voice, the mother gave the daughter a series of instructions on what to expect before during and after the flight and reminders about safety and watching her luggage. When she finished talking, she hugged her daughter, burst into tears, and walked away. The daughter saw me watching, grinned at me, and rolled her eyes.
But soon I was finished with my food and walked towards security. Now, I had no problems at the Charleston airport. I put my purse, small suitcase, and shoes in the bins they provide and walked into the large glass tube, raised my hands while a scanner circled my body, and left the tube. I grabbed my belongings and went straight to my gate. But Orlando was a different story.
Just as before, I put my purse, small suitcase, and shoes in the bins, and walked toward the glass tube. But before I entered, a security guard ran a wand up and down my body and it made all kinds of shrieking noises. Alarmed, the guards sent me into the tube where I raised my hands while the scanner circled my body. Alarms shrieked everywhere. When I stepped out, a very large woman was standing there wearing rubber gloves.
“Ma’am, I need you to empty out your pockets,” she said in a stern voice.
“I don’t have any pockets,” I said, lifting up my shirt from my waistband to show her.
“Ma’am, I’m going to have to pat you down, and we can do it here or in private. What’s your preference?”
I think I have seen too much TV because the thought of going with her into a room alone scared me half to death. “Listen, I have a metal plate in my back, four large metal screws, a titanium ball in my hip, and a rod in my leg. I think that’s why your alarms are going off. I can show you my scars if you want,” I said pleadingly.
“Ma’am, I need to pat you down,” she said again.
I anxiously watched my belongings in the bins go down the conveyor belt through the X-ray and out of sight. I was starting to feel a little panicked by now.
“Ma’am?” she asked again.
“OK, just pat me down right here and now,” I said. I really didn’t want to be in a room alone with her, and I also didn’t want to be too far away from my belongings.
So she proceeded to pat me down... and boy, did she pat me down! No one has ever put their hands on me like that except my husband!
When it was all over, she said I was cleared and could move on, but when I arrived at the end of the conveyor belt all my belongings were missing. Grabbing the attention of a young security guard I asked him where my belongings were. Grinning, he pointed back at the X-ray machine where two guards were going through my purse in my luggage. Eventually they handed everything back to that security guard who, still grinning, told me I was a bad girl and held up a bottle of water that I had forgotten was in my purse. It of course was confiscated.
When I finally left security and made it to the monorail and on to my gate, I was glad I was early. I needed time to recover from the frenzy I had just experienced. I felt guilty and scared for some odd reason.
Finally, I made it onto the plane to come home. The plane slowly taxied away from the gate and got in line would the other airplanes. We were number 18 in line to take off. That is when the captain came on and announced that if we were not given the OK to take off in the next 10 minutes the plane would have to return to the airport and the flight be rescheduled because he and the crew had already put in 7 hours of an 8 hour shift.
It was at that point that I completely understood why some people go wacko on airplanes. I knew there was no way I could go through that pat down again, so I just prayed. Thankfully, God heard my prayer because within 7 minutes we were cleared for takeoff after the captain explained his dilemma to the control tower. So we bypassed 15 other planes and came home to Charleston.
Home sweet home. And I didn’t go wacko.
