Clenchè

So what's a boy to do, waiting to be cleared through security at 6AM two days before Christmas?

Fidgeting is not an option in the Expert Traveler line. Pausing for the slightest moment holds up this so-called fast lane and makes you the target of businessman ire: You can practically feel the hate seething off their thumbs and into their Blackberries if you don't continue the slow shuffle forward. But the queue moves too fast to start unpacking your laptop or removing your boots. Reading is stupid and moot and puts off a pretentious air that's completely unappreciated so early in the morning. And I'm totally self-conscious when traveling by myself.

So, what's a boy to do?

My bored eyes busied themselves by searching the crowds as they often do, looking for odd behavior or cleavage or well-done pedicures or ironic T-shirts or hair styles I should consider trying down the road. Anything to keep me from breaking down into nervous, tired twitches-- I hear that's how you get chosen for a cavity search.

During this idle waiting time I started to notice a certain, particular behavior shared by every potential passenger: Clenching. No one passes through the metal detector without tightening their rear cheeks, and no one relaxes until they're waved on to collect their belongings.

At first, I thought it was some sign of guilt. Those people must have condoms full of heroin stashed up there. Maybe they're hiding some CP on their laptops. Maybe they know they're going to set off the metal detector with their C4-lined Mujahideen briefs. But then I noticed that even kids as young as seven or eight tighten up with fear as they pass through America's second-most-ominous arch. Husbands, wives, geriatrics, and 20something hipsters alike all pinch up painfully as they prepare for TSA judgment.

So why does this universal behavior exist, anyways? Houston Hobby has to be one of the more likely places you might find a completely guiltless Christian person who could pass through security with their conscience clean and their ass relaxed. It also happens to be the sort of place where you might find asses so big that clenching is just too much effort. Is it some sort of mass post-9/11 phenomena that speaks to our culture of fear? Or is it a certain distrust of technology, knowing that these metal detectors go off even when you're ferrous-free? Maybe the entire country really is on drugs and everyone worries whether they forgot to take the pocket pipe out of their apple-bottom jeans before heading home for the holidays.

I was lost in these thoughts as I went through the traditional motions: Step up, grab the gray bin, throw your Docs in with your laptop, throw the backpack on, top it with the plastic baggie full of allergy meds and Tide stain sticks, watch your stuff disappear into the magic false-color X-ray machine, and then...

I stared ahead at the kind-looking TSA attendant on the other side of the beige arch. She smiled but held her hand up, signaling that it was not yet my time to pass. I glanced at the bar of LED lights on top of the detector as it fluctuated with randomly-changing electromagnetic fields. I was about to be the guinna pig in my own little experiment: Can you really pass through this thing without tightening up?

She waved me forward, like Neo ready to take on Agent Smith. Her gesture was some sort of dare. But I knew I could do it. I tried to reassure myself. I turned my pockets inside out before I put on my pants this morning. The last guy made it through no problem, and his teeth looked loaded with fillings. No turning back now. This isn't just an experiment. This is a challenge to discard the past eight years of fear-mongering American life and...

...and...

...and by the time I opened my eyes from the feighned blink, I was on the other side of the detector, handing the TSA agent my boarding pass like I always do. I sighed and relaxed.