1 Locking of a door in a windowless room 2 The slapping sound of latex gloves being snapped on someone’s hands 3 The firm request, “Please remove all of your clothes down to your underwear.” Rewind the tape. Did you know that the security personnel in European airports carry machine guns? You can wear your shoes through the security screening, and everything seems to move faster. If you fly first class, which on business I did, there is a special lounge for you to sit in at the airports in Europe as you wait for your flight. They have great coffee, decent wine, and as many Biscoff cookies as you can steal and pack in your briefcase for the trip. There are even little sandwiches. First-class international travel used to be nice. I do not know much about what it is like recently, but in the day, it was not bad. You had to make your choice on sleep. Either you drink the coffee, or you drink the wine. Mistake one on this trip: I chose the coffee. Three cups of the real stuff, double espressos with a little milk and a lot of attitude.
I was coming out of Amsterdam after other travel, and this was my final leg to the states. I dressed like an American, which meant, for me, comfort. I was in a running suit, tennis shoes, a t-shirt, and thick socks (airplanes can get cold). I was ready. I had books, there were movies on the plane, and there was work to do. They feed you several meals and snacks. It does not matter; put all of the polish on this you want, flying to Chicago is just long. Landing there, I was jacked up on more coffee, but no sleep. Eating anything they would feed me just to give me something to do. There is an attention span for any book that only rates three out of five stars, and I had hit that threshold over Greenland or Iceland or somewhere a long ways from home. Weaving my way through the line to move to Customs and grab my bag from one spinning luggage off-loading machine to place in another one (I believe this serves a purpose), I am a zombie. One foot in front of the other. Forms to turn in, passport to be stamped, luggage to pick up from one carousel coming from Amsterdam and then place on another carousel going to Indianapolis. All I was missing from this plodding Night of the Living Dead casting call was the guttural sound that all zombies seem to make. That line moved so slowly. The only interesting break to the monotony was this guy walking around the line with a German shepherd. He was kind of sniffy as he came around people, but he seemed friendly. Side note: I was raised in a home where animals were not allowed. My mom is terrified of animals, so not only did we not have any, we were taught not to like them, and to be suspicious of them on sight. This has taken me years to overcome, and now I like some pets. Having said that, for some reason, animals usually gravitate towards me. Cats lie on me, dogs sniff my crotch (wait, that’s an everybody thing). The point is that I am a so-so animal person at this point in Chicago. I reach down and I kind of pet the German shepherd as he goes by, and he looks up and seems happy to have someone pay a little attention to him. I don’t think anything of it. He goes up and down the line a couple more times, and since we are friends, he stops by me and I give him a little pat. This was not petting, scratching the tummy, or saying, “Who’s a good boy! Who’s a good boy!” and tossing a tennis ball. It was a little
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pat. I stagger with the rest of the line forward for another five or six feet when two security personnel ask me to join them and bring my briefcase with me. This last instruction to “bring my briefcase with me” seemed a bit redundant, because I wasn’t going to leave it in line. I was taken fifty feet away to a small stainless-steel door with no doorknob, just a place for a key. One of the security people used a key off his belt to open the door, and I was ushered in. Then I heard the three sounds I don’t like to hear in succession. 1 Locking of a door in a windowless room 2 The slapping sound of latex gloves being snapped on someone’s hands 3 The firm request, “Please remove all of your clothes down to your underwear.” Time didn’t slow down for me at this moment, but my senses really heightened. All four walls were that nasty light-green high-school shower tile. It was the big kind, probably three inches by six inches. There was a stainless-steel shelf, a stainless-steel bench, and the door was stainless steel. The light was fluorescent, a color that not even cadavers look good in. There was not even a door knob to get out, just the key hole. I think the tiny size may have been the most disheartening. The ceiling could not have been more than seven feet high; from one wall to another, maybe nine feet. It was tight. Fully awake now, I had the sense to ask, “What did I do?” The answer confirmed my mother’s suspicions and kept me from getting dogs for several years until the trauma subsided. The guard said, “Our contraband dog took a high interest in you while you were in line.” I have read enough spy novels to know that having you remove all of your clothes is intended to make feel vulnerable before interrogation. A windowless and cramped space will create fear. Latex gloves are just never a good sign, especially if you are a man over 35. In the spy novels, the spy does something amazing, breaks out of the space, and goes on D r u g D o gs Ma ke Ba d Pets
with the mission. I did almost exactly the same thing, except the opposite. I complied completely. I started to take off my clothes. As one guard watched me and the other went through my briefcase, the interrogation began: • What was I doing in Amsterdam? • How long had I been there? • Was I traveling with anyone? • Had I visited any of the cafés when I was in Amsterdam? The idea that I never left the airport and was just changing flights seemed to make no difference to the guards. Meanwhile, they went through everything very thoroughly. Now was the moment of truth: time to frisk the suspect—me. I was frisked by people who were serious about looking for something even though I was almost naked. I was waiting for the inevitable request. You know what I am talking about. Sealed room, thorough search, interrogation, latex gloves…there is only one thing left, right? The building dread of the words—do I have to say them? Haven’t we all seen enough prison movies to know what words were running through my mind that were coming next? I have had medical exams that were excessively thorough in my opinion, but in a security situation, I did not want to hear those anticipated and humiliating words, “bend over and spread your legs.” Before you judge, consider my circumstances and options. I was a little sweaty, and I will honestly try to remember the size of the guard’s hands. You may think it is an odd thought, but in the moment, I considered it important. No words were more welcome than, “You may dress and gather your things.” I guess I was not the international drug-smuggling risk that they thought I might be. I dressed quickly, was key-unlocked out of the room, and rushed back to my line, which had surprisingly moved closer to the
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checkout. The guards moved me to the front of the line, wished me safe travels. From that point forward, I have avoided all contact with every security contraband dog and have stuck with Shih Tzus. These are dogs that not only do not sniff for contraband, they do not move for longer than two to three hours per day. One must be careful about the friends one makes. This is true in the animal world as well as in real life. Duh…
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