Impending Fun With Airport Security

[dvandom]

It seems like every time a bomb explodes in an English-speaking country, all the airport security people crank the sensitivity of their magnetometers up a notch. The last few times I've flown, the combination of glasses and belt buckle have been enough to send me over to the Wanding Area, even though I'd removed all the other metal from my body (I don't even have metallic fillings anymore, they got replaced with ceramic years ago during the year I dropped 1/4 of my annual gross income on dental work). I managed to avoid wanding on my last trip by putting my belt on the conveyor, but was chagrined to find that my pants would no longer stay up without a belt.

Aside: I'm a big guy, 250 pounds. I've been wearing 40-waist pants since high school, and have never had much of my fat in the hips. Lately, however, it seems that manufacturers are making larger waists and keeping the old numbers. My oldest pants are size 40 and stay on fine without a belt. My newest size 40s will drop as soon as the belt is unbuckled, even if I'm standing with my feet a meter apart. I really don't want to drop trou in the security line, thanks, but I'm only slowly replacing my wardrobe with smaller sizes (which still need belts, sigh).

Anyway, the only presentable older pants I still have are black, and pretty much out for wearing in August, being made of thicker fabric too. And I have another conference next week in Salt Lake City (which will be cooler than here in Kansas, but not a lot cooler). But I have found a solution, one that should let me avoid my own embarrassment while simultaneously weirding out the screeners.

A luggage strap. All plastic, and thanks to the fact that bigger pants these days are just scaled up skinny person pants rather than designed for larger people, the belt loops are large enough to admit the 2" wide strap. The rainbow-colored strap.

Of course, thanks to the London bombings last month, my glasses alone will probably be enough to set off the metal detectors. But at least the wand won't trigger on my "belt" and result in the wander asking I unbuckle so they can wand behind the buckle.

Sometimes I wish I was uninhibited enough to just put all my clothes on the conveyor and walk through the magnetometer naked as a protest of our national stupidity and fear. But that's probably against some law or other too. Stupid laws.

Comments

[z4nd4r.livejournal.com]

Actually it's not too bad. Unless your glasses are made entirely of metal it shouldn't go off.

With all my piercings, I don't set off a metal detector.
I wish-I wish it would, so I could explain to nice old lady with the wand what a frenum piercing is and why her wand is going off over my crotch.