I had a horrible dream last night that it became the rule that people had to go through MRI-type machines on a conveyer belt before boarding flights. It was dirty and awful and I was so angry, and everyone around me was just shrugging their shoulders all, "Whaddayagonnado?" - like they are now, about having to take off their shoes and remove the batteries from their cell phones. (Peter Stuart is the exception I know of; he says he always sighs and says loudly, "Here's another delight we can thank the Muslim extremists for!")

I had my bag searched three times because of a Cliff bar. Apparently there's a foil lining that looked "suspicious". But they let me through another time with my nail clippers (which have a folding file). And I've been patted down for having underwire bras, and then let through. If you think about it, those underwires could be sharpened and easily used as a weapon. There is no real logic to airport searches. They are just there to calm the non-thinking.

Hello Amy, here's mine:

Last week me and my luggage were thoroughly screened prior to a business flight. When I was finished with every pocket and my only piece of hand luggage (one laptop), they stopped me and made me open my laptop bag. I didn't get it, because they just had screened that bag with some machine 10 seconds ago, letting it pass. I did as I had been told, though, but afterwards I asked the woman in charge: "Why was this necessary? You've just screened it with that machine, didn't you?"

I never got an answer to that one.

She just stared at me as if I wasn't there. I guess that line of work at the airport makes people dull in no time. (Since I was invisible now, I left.)

P.S.: Judging from your description, you and your boyfriend must be fun to hang out with in everyday situations...

I get pulled out everytime I fly. Even on both ends of a round trip. And I work for a show on FOX! (Yeah, yeah, yeah---spare me the hisses and boos.) And I have a NYPD press pass. So naturally, I'm I fit the profile.

*I*, wrote Amy, "can do whatever I want as long as *he*'s not sitting or standing with me at the time."

Amy, the *he* you are talking about is your handsome half, I presume, and you say that you can do whatever you want as long as he is not sitting or standing with you at the time. That leaves me confused as to what the two of you can do together, I mean when he is not sitting or standing...

Frania W.

What we can do together is anything that does not involve me mouthing off to people who can throw him in jail or might have a firearm, for example. There is wide latitude there, luckily!

What a dead sexy, gleeful smile!

PS- I was refused entrance into Hungary from Austria last year because my passport was very worn and several facial scars and dark features made me look "dangerous" or "military". No other explanation. Go home yankee.

Having rushed out to the Sacramento airport to travel down to Burbank for a wine industry event, my oversight of potential onboard weapons extended to four corkscrews that over a period of months I had accumulated in my briefcase. Actually one was in a separate carry on. Having being spotted in the machine they were removed; fortunately none were those expensive bone handle numbers.

But here's where it gets strange. One team of checkers handled the bag with the three instruments, another dealt with the other tool. The first group informed me that I could either leave the line and mail the corkscrews to myself or leave them behind(I hadn't heard about the mail option in previous removals on other absent minded trips).

The second gang took longer to give me the same information. Only it wasn't the same information. They politely and almost apologetically handed back what must be at the top of the list of items always confiscated. Now almost always confiscated. Team B seemed to engage in the appropriate confering behavior; this wasn't the mistake of one new hire. So how did I continue on my trip still in obvious violation of the rules of the air...?

So, when do we get to see a picture of your handsome half, Amy???

"What a dead sexy, gleeful smile!'

The photo's from Paris, Eric. She was drunk.

Good for her. - welcome back Lena!

mmmmm.....4 inch heels....

I was traveling to Ireland with a large group of friends some time ago. One of them, a 17 year-old girl, had packed most of her wardrobe by sealing every item tightly in individual plastic air-tight bags. It was impressive how much she fit into one suitcase. When we went through the screening line at LAX they opened her suitcase...you'd have thought she had an arsenal in her bag. It took 5 people to look at every shrink-wrapped item she had - shirts, skirts, panties. The poor girl was mortified. After pawing through her underthings they were satisfied and let us through. I'm still not sure what the problem was - only terrorists are organized?

Meanwhile, another member of our party whose bag was searched had packed for a much more interesting trip than I had - handcuffs, flail, chains - and the agents never even blinked. Go figure.

"It took 5 people to look at every shrink-wrapped item she had - shirts, skirts, panties. The poor girl was mortified."

What's even worse is having your skidmark-riddled panties rummaged through on the return trip!

You may not have heard of this, but the idiots in charge of airport "security" stripped 80-year-old Medal of Honor winner Joe Foss - three times - for carrying his Medal of Honor! A fighter pilot for the USMC in WW2, he'd brought down more enemies than the mouth-breathers in line had seen.

More recently, a woman traveling Europe by motorcycle was pulled from the line for having a heated vest, the likes of which are visible in dozens of motorcycle catalogs. The plane left without her; it was diverted and searched when it *reached* the States because no one had told the aircrew why their passenger was missing before they left the gate. This is called "security"?

The idiocy continues on the ground. US Government facilities have a rule now that non-government vehicles can't be parked within 30 yards of an occupied structure. Apparently, these geniuses have not noticed that a) the "enemy" uses suicide bombers, who will be unimpressed by a stupid parking rule, and b) an improvised explosive device capable of clearing a lunchroom is the size of a soda can. There is, of course, no measure for rapid response to the introduction of either an errant vehicle or an obvious explosive threat.

IT'S ALL PROPAGANDA.