This airport security is too much

By PETER GAITHO
Published December 11, 2009

I told you the other day, how I visited my mother’s land, at least to see how much undeveloped Kenya has become. Of course, my journey was on the economy class. And that is where the issue is.

You see, economy class is just that, airlines have economized on space, so I sit as if I am on a Mololine Matatu. Being of average height, this seat in front of me has always been so close to my knees, no matter the means of travel, unless I am driving a white Toyota Corolla around the now seemingly smooth Kenyan roads.

Before I board my flight to whichever destination, there is always some drama playing out and often turns to neighbor Vioja Mahakamani; only the cast is different, and it begins the moment I check in at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

I do not know about you, but I prefer wearing pants that are two inches wider at the waist, for a secret I want to divulge now. I have always wanted to hide the fact of owning long golf-stick-like pair of legs in oversized pants. Of course that does not bother me, because being the that gentleman I am, I always wear a belt.

But wait until I check in at the airport, any airport; my affinity for wearing wider pants all of a sudden becomes my undoing. Reason, I have to remove my belt, wallet, shoes, jacket and cap and place them in this tray atop a conveyer belt, that will transport them across some scanner.

You see, since the infamous 9-11, air travel has become a nightmare. You can never be too sure if your plane will be turned into a bomb, to hit a skyscraper, by the followers of the bearded Mullah, who hides in a catacomb of caves deep in the Tora Bora Mountains, somewhere in Pakistan or Afghanistan, depending on whom you ask.

It is for the reason above that airport security goes an extra mile and almost does a body cavity search, to determine whether the next passenger is a living bomb. I understand now it is possible to swallow a bomb, and detonate it at the right time by tapping an ear piece. What scary times we live in?

The airport security efforts have not been in vain, as evidenced by the collection of unwanted items on display in a huge transparent container at the check-in section. In the container one can see pen-knives, folks, mattocks, jack hammers, hand cuffs, and one huge leaf blower. It leaves one wondering why in the world anyone would board an airplane with some of these items.

So I was saying that at the airport, I lose my belt to a conveyer devise for 30 seconds or so. It is during these 30 seconds that I have come to loathe. I have never been in want for something like when I miss my belt.

Let me digress and reveal some secrets, you might not know about a man’s anatomy. It so happens that as a man approaches middle age, like I am, his stomach gets ideas of its own and starts protruding. As the stomach moves forward, somehow by some miracle, it swallows the backside. So the bigger you become in front, the flatter you become in the rear. I am sure you might have seen this phenomenon among traffic policemen on Kenyan roads. And it is an ugly sight to behold.

Thus as I lose my belt to this scanner, I am left with no option but to hold my pants with one hand, lest they fall, exposing my golf-stick-like pair of legs. Imagine a fully grown adult male, walking barefoot for a few feet holding his pants with one hand, with socks exposing the tip of his small toe? What an embarrassment? But wait a minute, the guy in front of me has been told to lift up his arms for further security check. Oh! My God! There we go again.

“Lift up your arms,” intones the bully airport security guy. What to do? Here I am already stripped of my belt, and there goes my pants. Did I read somewhere that His grace is sufficient to meet all our needs? And so necessity once again becomes the mother of all inventions. That is why when you see me lift up my hands in front of that security guard, those fleeting moments, my legs are placed at a certain angle and somehow, just somehow, I escape the agony of my pants kissing the carpet.

I am glad that the beeper of that gadget the security guard passes over my body, does not go off. I am ushered in to the hallowed place to the inner sanctum of the airport. You have never seen a grown man so grateful to be reunited with his belt at the end of the ordeal. Unfortunately, this will be repeated as I enter Obamaland.

Now you know what to expect when you check in at an airport, and like me, you are wearing pants two sizes bigger, to hide those skinny legs, and a disappearing behind.

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