Writing about airport troubles invites correpondents to tell their own stories:
Last August 13th, while going through security at Newark airport, everyone was required to remove their shoes and put them through the scanner. Given that I knew - from previous experience - my own shoes had metal in them, I was prepared to do that anyway.
My wife, however, was dressed very simply to avoid problems, including light, non metallic, open toed sandals, with a single strap, on otherwise bare feet. Being a nurse with 20 years experience, she balked at the idea of being forced to walk barefoot on what was obviously a filthy floor that had already been trod upon by countless numbers of other bare feet from all over the world, carrying God-know-what sort of fungi and other bugs. She also was not feeling well. She angrily removed her sandals and tossed them onto the belt. Immediately, probably due to her justifiably miffed response, she was taken aside for further “screening”. She was forced to endure all sorts of odd standing positions while being wanded, supposedly to determine whether she was carrying something “between her legs”.
But the piece-de-resistence came when she was forced to extend her legs from a seated position while the TSA-moron wanded her bare feet! She all but exploded, “What, do you think I have microchip implants in my arches?” She was barely dressed as it was, with minimal underwear, blouse and skirt, and there was a real concern that full a nude search would be next, for at this point, the goal was not to “screen” but to intimidate, and to show who’s boss on the jetway. But she was finally released.
