TSA screening at the Denver Airport. Photo by Danpaluska, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
I am at the airport in the early morning flying to attend a business meeting across the country. While waiting to go through the TSA Pre-check line, my thoughts wandered to Richard Reid, that “Shoe Bomber” guy who is solely responsible for the 3.4 oz rule.
My random musings were interrupted as I observed the branding on the instrumentation scanner thingies (technical term) that all the carry-on luggage passes through. You know, to see if anyone is carrying a gun or 4 oz. of toothpaste. The side of all the machines had a graphic logo that read “analogic.” Analogic. It’s probably a mash up of “analysis” or “analyze” plus “logic,” but it really looked like “anal” + “logic.” That’s pretty shitty branding if you ask me. Or is it genius because weirdos like me will amplify it online? No publicity is bad, I suppose. Those Analogic people sure are indebted to Richard Reid. I wonder if they know that?
As I stood in line waiting for the Analogic machine to crap out my bags which definitely had less than 3.4 oz of individual toiletries in them (but collectively had at least 34 oz), I started counting masks around me. We are still taking our shoes off and separating our toiletries twenty-something years after Richard Reid’s infamous transatlantic flight. As such, masks and travel may be not only the present, but the future of airline travel. In the age of Omicron most people are wearing disposable masks. Disposable masks like the discarded one I stepped over on my walk from the parking lot.
Is it possible to consider the virtues of trash? How many disposable masks have ended up as refuse? What about all those plastic straws we quit using? Have they been offset by disposable masks? Maybe the sea turtles prefer wearing the masks rather than the plastic straws through their noses? Can sea turtles get Covid? Which is more important: saving the planet or preventing Covid? What if we all die of Covid but the landfills are empty, is that good? Maybe we’re supposed to survive Covid but live in landfills full of disposable masks after sea turtles are extinct? Can someone find the crying Native American from a 70s commercial so I can ask about this? The sea turtles are definitely laughing: society is a funny, funny thing.
I guess I don’t pandemic properly: I’m wearing a mask I sewed myself in March of 2020. It’s triple layer cotton, made from scraps of American flag print material that I already owned with ties made from one of my husband’s old t-shirts. I thought we were supposed to “reduce, reuse, recycle?” We launder our masks regularly, and I had been feeling proud to put my skill-set for post-apocalyptic living to good use. At this point, it occurs to me that it is entirely possible my American flag material is micro-aggressing someone in a disposable mask. Good thing I’m not wearing a red hat. My hat today is blue. Keep everyone guessing!!
I make my way to the Delta Sky Lounge. The breakfast buffet is out, and I order a mimosa which I can casually sip—mask free!!—until my flight boards because everyone knows Delta SkyMiles are the second-best way to prevent Covid transmission behind disposable masks. I wonder if they have plastic straws in here. I’m tempted to ask for a straw, just to see. But I can’t bring myself to defile the bubbly with a straw, paper, plastic or otherwise.
I Google Richard Reid. He’s serving three life sentences in the Supermax prison in Colorado. I guess we are all serving one too–shoeless and masked for perpetuity–but the moral of the story is: alcohol appears to make everything a bit more tolerable.
Cheers.
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