By: Denise A. Coleman
July 6, 2011
This column was going to be about a conference I attended this past week but that will have to wait. I decided to share my experience on an airport security line since that is so much in the news these days. I am very much in favor of security, but there is a limit.
Last June I flew to a conference in Minneapolis. I requested the airline have a person with a wheelchair take me to the gate. I had my crutches and one carry-on bag, which held my medications along with my clothes.
I have six metal implants in my body, enough to set off the security alarms so I get a pat down instead. A nice woman told me she would wear Latex gloves and be careful when examining my 'private parts,' meaning she’ll use the back of her hands when she touched my breasts and my “hooha!”
Two men at the x-ray machine examined my carry on bag. I was putting on my shoes, jacket, and scarf as I watched them confer. The woman guard, who changed demeanor and facial expression from sweet examination lady to terrorist alert glare, came back to guard me. I guess by now they were afraid I was going to try to escape. What did they find in my bag?
One of the men pulled an opaque bottle from my bag. He read the label on it, shook it, and his worst fears were realized; it was liquid — and more than the allowed amount.
"Is this liquid in this bottle?" he yelled.
"Yes." I answered quietly.
"You know you aren't supposed to carry liquid. I'll have to dump it."
"No, please, it is medicine."
"You don't get medicine in liquid form."
"I do, look at the prescription on the label."
"I don't know what this medicine is."
Now I am annoyed. I have been manhandled by a terrorist guard in front of all these people and now I am being questioned about my prescription in a voice anyone in the vicinity can hear. I worried that the rest of my medicines were going to be lost or dumped. I turned to the female guard, who I was sure would handcuff me any minute, and said to her quietly, "It's for constipation" figuring she'd walk over and tell her colleague what it was. But I was wrong.
She pumped herself up and yelled out in an officious, unbelieving voice, "She says it's for constipation. I never heard of no liquid prescription for constipation, did you?"
I was just about to ask for a manager when a passenger on the now long line said he was a doctor and of course there were liquid medications for the purpose I described. He had credentials and I was finally released to a round of cheers, clapping, and laughter.
My lessons? Don’t take myself too seriously. Always keep a sense of humor. And don’t take liquid constipation medicine on a plane!
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