Terminated at the Terminal

As I'm waiting to pass through airport security, I notice that an
elderly woman, who was three people ahead of me in line , has been
asked to remove her shoes and empty her purse; as I turn around in
disgust to look at my fellow travelers I notice a bearded man of Arab
descent five or six people behind me.

He looks just as, if not more, annoyed and impatient as I am.

This search is taking long because the woman is outraged at being asked
to do this humiliating task. She is arguing with the security guard. I
must admit that she would be the very last person I would suspect to be
carrying a bomb. She is about eighty-two and can barely stand up
straight. She is traveling alone and is having a hard time with her
shoes, she almost falls over. The security guard is not deterred by her
objections or her slowness of getting the shoes off. They are the laced
up type and are taking some time to un-tie. When she finally gets them
off, she is clean. No explosive toes.

After tying up her shoes, the guard is now requesting she empty her
bag. This really sets her off. She starts yelling at the guard,
meanwhile, those of us waiting on line are getting impatient and angry
at her. The guy in front of me yells at her, "Just empty the bag, you
old bag, and let's go." Is this really necessary? I cannot figure out
why the guard is giving this woman such a through search. She does not
look anything like a terrorist; she looks like somebody's grandma. I am
thinking to myself, "If he is doing this to her, what's going to happen
when the Arab guy behind me gets to the front of the line". Will he be
asked to strip naked?

The woman vehemently refuses to turn over her bag, which creates a
chaotic scene, law enforcement guards swarming all around us. Our
flight to Israel is scheduled to leave in thirty minutes and there is
no way that all the passengers can be searched and the flight still
take off on time. Will they let us all go through after her without a
search, or will they search us anyway. Will we make the flight, I
wonder?

I turn my head to see what is happening behind me, and it is obvious
that everyone is freaking out over the delay, especially the Arab. I
don't know if it is because of his tightly wrapped turban, but the
sweat is just pouring down his forehead. He is fidgeting and seems very
anxious. He is looking all around in a twitching manner.

Because the old woman is causing such a ruckus, they decide to cancel
the flight. The instant this is announced, I turn my head and the Arab
is gone, out of sight, vanished. Was he planning something?

As it turned out, the old bag was only carrying her old bag, with
nothing more than junk in it. Why she refused the search to begin with
I can only guess had to do with her pride. It may be due to this
cantankerous woman's unwillingness to cooperate with airline security
that a coo was foiled, or we all missed our flight for nothing. We will
never know.

While it is unfair to the Arab culture to assume that the Arab
gentleman standing on that line had any plot in progress or grand
scheme, he was probably just another passenger being inconvenienced for
his own safety, I can only blame the memory of September 11th for
claiming my rationale.