bitches on the floor

 This has not been a stellar week. Between passengers and a couple of people over my head, I feel like I have been stomped. Grump. 98Rock was kind enough to provide me with some angry music on my way into work today, and it felt good just to sit and seethe. Nothing of particular importance happened today, and for that I am grateful. So, on to the bitches.

I am still with an OJT (who is not a bitch). Bag check. Blah blah blah… your liquids, creams, gels and sprays are too big… blah blah… -this passenger is one of those Interrupters. The ones who ask me a question and before I have a chance to finish answering they tell me how ridiculous or stupid I am. The ones I need to dig down DEEEEEP into a well of calm to stop from snapping replies like, “Oh, so you didn’t actually want to know the answer to your question? Then shut up, step back and let mommy work here.” She knelt down on the floor to tie her shoes, and when we got to the part about “not able to go in your carry-on,” she threw her hands, her book and her purse into the air, threw herself onto the floor and had herself a snit. Pinching her nose between thumb and forefinger, she said in her haughty voice, “So a lady is not allowed to have her beauty products. That beats all.” Honey, you need more than products. She proceeded to sit in the walkway, blocking passengers who gingerly tried to pick their way around her and her mess, politely not rolling over her fingers. She proceeded to tell us how ridiculous it is that she can’t have her $50 worth (read: they were on sale for $1 each at Wal-Mart) of lotions and hair cream, and how these new rules keep messing her up. “New” being 2006, is rather new in her golden age, I suppose. My OJT did outstanding, telling her to make up her mind and fast, not batting an eye at the drama the mama brought with her.

(The very next day, my OJT passed her exam with flying colors… that’s two for two! WAY TO GO!!!)

I guess it is just human nature to want to “help” things that are “stuck.” Contrary to popular belief, the x-ray machine is not in constant motion. I, the x-ray operator, make the conveyor belt move when, and ONLY when I damn well please, with the push of a set of magical colorful buttons. My job is to look at the contents of the bag and the bag itself, not just roll the shit through like a burger on the griller at BK. It is not a moving sidewalk for your luggage. So, in order to better view the helter-skelter contents of your world-in-a-bag, I stop the machine. If your bag is inside the tunnel, just out of reach, LEAVE IT. It is not stuck. Looking in the tunnel won’t make it move faster. Talking to me won’t make it move faster. Talking to me repeatedly, telling me that the bag is stuck and the belt isn’t moving is certainly going to take more time. Cause now that I have taken my eyes off the bag to look at you and hold a conversation, I forgot what I already checked. Yeah. Your fault, there. Again, don’t reach into the tunnel to grab your bag. If I catch you, I will take your bag away and run it through again on principle. I am sick to death of getting yelled at by my supervisors for you freaks climbing into the x-ray and grabbing bags before I am done.

Don’t put your animals into the x-ray. I am also tired of playing firefighter and retrieving your animals for you. You didn’t know? You *didn’t* KNOW it was an X-RAY MACHINE???? And someone allowed you to care for another living being?? Please leave my sight. Now. Before my stupidity lasers activate and your cat needs a new owner.

Which brings us to insanity.

Random: (adj) 1. without pattern. done, chosen, or occurring without an identifiable pattern, plan, system, or connection. random checks 3. equally likely. relating or belonging to a set in which all the members have the same probability of occurrence. a random sampling

You’ve been randomly selected for additional screening. “I’ve been what? Why me? Out of all these ladies, why me?” Well, uhm, it was random? You were the next lady through the door? “My father just died the other day. I don’t know if I can handle this. I feel like the weight of a thousand bricks is on me.” Uhm, I’m sorry to hear that. This will just take a minute and you will be on your way. I need to pat you down– “WHY? I’m a Christian woman. Why did you choose me???” I didn’t actually choose you, ma’am. And your religion has nothing to do with it.

I ran through the litany of questions I’m supposed to ask every lady who steps in to be screened by me. I asked her if she was sore anywhere, because I didn’t want to injure her. She was obviously upset and I wanted to finish what I had to do and quickly. “ Yes. I’m sore. Everywhere.” Okaaaaay. I will be careful. I reached my hands out to her elbow and she flinched back like she’d been struck by lightning, and said, “Don’t touch me. You’re dirty! You keep away from me!” When I called for a supervisor, she began wailing… and wailing about her father’s death “this very day, this day!!” -oh, did you catch that too? mm-hmm. She caused a scene the likes of which I have never seen before. She accused me of being a racist. She accused me of being a cold, mean-spirited, ugly girl with a dark heart. She said at one point, “Look at her dull eyes; she’s simple, that one.” Fortunately for her, I had already removed myself from the screening booth, because what she would have seen was green fire shooting from my eyes and fists controlled at my sides. If there is one thing that will get my goat every time, it’s calling my intelligence into question. Every. Effing. Time. NOW it’s on. Passengers are watching her snotting and crying on my supervisor, weeping and wailing all over the place. She is thrashing around the screening booth, leaning on this person and then that person. Falling all over herself and acting a fool.

Other passengers watching the calamity told me, “If she would just calm down, she would be done by now.” “I’ve been selected before. It’s no big deal.” “I get selected all the time.” The Supervisory Hysterics Committee finally calmed her enough to lead her out of the screening booth to a private room and when I gathered her things up, she started over again, about my dirty gloves. I was about *this* close to thowin down and knockin this old bitch to the floor, funeral or not. May I remind you, it is my job to see through shit like this; people lying to get out of screening procedures to sneak stuff onto a plane. For all I know, she is smuggling something on her person and is terrified I’m going to find it. It would not be the first time, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last. (Although the funniest was the dude who tried to smuggle his pepper spray through, tucked into his dark, dark secret and it um, leaked. That was a fast runner! But that is another story.)

She ruined my day. She ruined my night, too…thoughts of a plane going down because I didn’t screen her thoroughly enough…. She called me stupid, yes, but it also called into question what I could have done differently, better to calm her ass down. Or perhaps it was all a ruse and she just wanted to see how far it could go. Maybe she was testing the limits. At one point, I wondered if she was testing me, personally, to see if I followed procedures. She made me so angry and I held my cool, for the most part. But I hate her *hate* her with a passion for making me feel like this. She is a simple, stupid cow, funeral or not. And the next person who comes through, carrying on like that will not evade screening either. I guarantee it.