Airports and underpants

 

New challenges for travelers are just plain embarrassing

LIFE STINKS FOR frequent fliers.

Literally.

The shoebomber was bad enough, forcing airports to start demanding that we expose our smelly feet.

On my last visit to the airport, the guy next to me at the security gate had clearly spent the last year soaking his pseudopodia in a bath of pureed durian and camembert. I could see people 100 meters fainting while their companions ran away in horror.

So I shiver as I contemplate the grim procedures to be introduced in the wake of the antics of the underpants bomber.

The day may already have dawned when the check-in girl is going to have read a list of question to you.

“Are you aware of the contents of your underpants? Were all items in your underpants placed therein by yourself? Has any other person placed items inside your underpants without your knowledge?”

If guards at the security gate want to inspect my intimate garments, I have a list of readymade replies.

1) “I took  my underpants off in advance and placed them in this plastic ziplock bag. Sorry about their unsavory appearance but I’m a nervous traveler.”

2) “Pants? What makes you think I am wearing underpants, big boy?”

3) “Okay, you can examine my underpants, but be quick: I’ve just escaped from the infectious diseases centre and need to get through before the guys in radiation suits catch up with me.”

4) “Check my underpants? Ooh, yes please. Take as much time as you like. Use both hands! And I’ll have a bit of a rummage inside yours at the same time.”
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I was writing this while drinking lunch at the bar when my mentor/ bartender referred me to a gentleman on the other side of the room who worked for an airline.

“You poke fun at us, but it’s a serious problem,” the executive said, after peering at the text above without a hint of a smile, like most readers. (Airport officials have their senses of humor surgically removed when they receive their uniforms.) “How would YOU locate bombs hidden in the gusset area of people’s pants? Let’s hear YOUR ideas.”

I gave him three alternatives.

1) Implement a new rule that travelers cannot board aircraft unless they are wearing kilts.

2) Make all travelers remove their underpants in the departure hall and check them in to be placed in the cargo hold for the duration of the flight. Fresh underpants could be issued to travelers at immigration. “Please accept this pair of XXXL Y-fronts with the compliments of Airport Security.”

3) Airlines could take the money earmarked for extra guards and spend it on a massive campaign to extol the virtues of in-flight nudism.

But actually, the answer to the problem is dangling right in front of us here in Asia. Mothers of babies in India and China put their offspring in gusset-less clothing. Split crotches allowing easy purging, and exposure to the open air means traditionally-dressed Asian babies never get nappy-rash. All we need is adult sizes of Asian baby clothes.

This idea DID cause the airline man to crack a smile. “Actually, you CAN get these things in adult sizes,” he said. “Just try Victoria’s Secret.”
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Technorati Tags: Underpants bomber,Detroit,airport security,airlines,underwear

Comments

[farah]

“Check my underpants? Ooh, yes please. Take as much time as you like. Use both hands! And I’ll have a bit of a rummage inside yours at the same time.”

unless the guy is gay i would like to see his reaction to this reply.

[Anon]

Nury you are always getting into trouble for your big mouth, I dare you to try out some of the lines above the next time you are travelling...

[fardel]

This is getting ridiculously ridiculous
A guy, in a US plane , in the Us, full of US citizens and Us crew so called set himself on fire without more success than the one with the so called explosive tooth paste.
it sets in motion a new requirement( like it did for the regulations on liquids ) from the US authorities to impose to friendly participating countries,or else, to buy the new US made, US built experimental and expensive body scanner.i.e allow bushmen to make huge profits in selling those new machines
Definitely this is the new trend:
The war OF terror
An economy based on terrorizing nations ( like the A1 NHN scare where millions of vaccines have been sold by Us labs to "friendly "participating countries which do not know what to do with unwanted useless vaccines.)
profit to the labs:over 400 billions us dollars
What is next?
Anything is good to make money, and one country is pretty good at it ,sending wave after wave of worldwide financial disasters.
The winners?;
the terrorists are:
the terrorists who send one kid to scare a powerful nation, by destroying its economy at a cheapest cost
the terrorists who will make huge profits from this event , and who will make more money by sending missiles to kill innocent villagers in a remote area of a sandy country.
If you read the list of targeted citizens ; the ones which sell their oil preferably to China

who loses?
- the world citizens:
- freedom
a new security tax will increase again the cost of travel,therefore hurting tourism industry and the economy of small lands or islands which have nothing else to offer that their attractive environment.

travel in Gandhi's attire may be funny as a joke.
For us, in the aviation industry , it is a costly nightmare:on inter island short flight, security taxes represent up to 100% of the basic cost of a roundtrip ticket

What a disaster.

[sej]

Underpants? What underpants?

[sej]

Errrr....

Was that too much information?? :-)

[Angela]

Underwear is too restrictive, especially on long flights. I wear sleeping gown and change an hour before landing. Try it and arrive at your destination fresh. Just have to ignore the stares of fellow passengers.

A law should be passed to address this. Underwear should be banned on the plane because it can be used as weapon to subdue the flight crew. Change your flight path and Fly to the caribbean now or I will take off my jock strap and strangle the captain with it.

Do it NOW!!!

[Angela]

Ofcourse you have to be a big burly trucker like me to attempt that threat.

Good morning folks! If the cock is crowing where you are. Errr... Should I say rooster instead?

[TS]

sej,
If I should ever meet you in person, it would be a comfort to know that you and your "boys" are separated from me by more than one layer of fabric :-)

In the spirit of full disclosure, I'm currently wearing two layers of undergarments. My normal briefs (no boxers for me, I like to keep my boys in the nest under control) and Long Johns.

It's a bit surreal, today I have been bogged in snow in my car (some friendly locals helped get out with a shovel and by pushing (I feel bad about how dirty my car was)) and in two months I will be driving across the Nullarbor.

[Harry]

Fardel

"A guy, in a US plane , in the Us (sic)..." I keep reading statements like this, "over Detroit" and similar. But the great circle route from western Europe to Detroit puts the aircraft in Canada for the final hours of the flight and in the USA for only the very last few minutes. Most of this action, I'm sure, took place in south western Ontario, not in the USA.

[fardel]

technicalities (°_°)

[Chamin]

Just having Gandhi-like clothing (which I put in my predictions for 2010 and Fardel has mentioned) will not boost the US businesses. So, I think their trade-off will be:

1. We have to wear the towel provided by the airline and pass through the security gate.

2. Expensive equipment for making sure that we wear only the towel and checking the clothes without touching them will be sold by these companies.

[sej]

TS,

That's a contrast... In Norway, I believe they've had -42. In Melbourne, they had +45... Over 80 degrees different.

Angela,

Is that a way to subdue the cabin crew, or get them rather excited?

[Christy]

Imaginary scenario:
"Miss, we have to check your underwear."

(repeat the above, but in a full octave higher) "You have to CHECK my UNDERWEAR? How dare you, you PERVERT!!!"

[fardel]

Here are some serious questions which have to be addressed ( add-dressed, or is it un dressed ?)
How do you stop the security staff from rolling on the floor when they see something funny, like guys dancing the jig , trying to avoid to step on their natural tools?

how do you stop divorced security staff from getting crazy watching beautiful bodies all day long,and being unable to touch them ( Do not forget, in airport security you have two categories of staff , the watchers and the touchers)

How do you control the flow of ...... on the floor at certain times on the moon phases?
remember any liquid is prohibited, How do you drain them from passengers?
with new machines?

Will there be any specialized staff to help push the huge passengers through the machine when the clothing can no longer control the excess of fat?

What is going to happen if a big passenger squeezes his , her protuberances in the machine?

[fardel]

Who will supply the tools to dismantle and reinstall any artificial legs or members?
who will do the job?
are they qualified?

How security will know if silicone implants ( i.e breasts) are real silicone , real breasts, or real explosives?

We all know that some (i;e. most ) ladies are naturally of explosive nature;
How do they NOT qualify as terrorist?
they sure do scare their husbands.

[Chamin]

Sej,

To "Errr" is human :-p

[Karuna]

http://www.thestandard.com.hk/show_image.asp?id=224

News Report > A cheeky woman and her Pirate Party pals get down to basics at Berlin's Tegal airport in protest against the introduction of anti-terrorist body scanners in the wake of the foiled bomb attack on a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day. The German activists reckon the scanners will peep at parts of the body that should remain, well, private. But this is a funny way to show off credentials of modesty. AFP

[Uli]

TS, that is really a neat inside into your undergarments and it sent me into fits of laughter... because I, too, am currently wearing two layers as it is lousily (or just lousy?!) cold here in Germany!!!