No, I'm not hiding explosives in my thong

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Israeli security measures are no joke. For example I fly frequently with Cathay, and standard rule of thumb is that you need to check in an hour before the flight if you have luggage, half an hour if sans luggage. Stupid, stupid me as I roll up to the very end of some far-flung, isolated wing at Charles de Gaulle for my flight an hour before for a flight to Israel.

The El-Al Airlines (the Israeli national airline, I think) area sits all the way at the end of one of the terminals. Its check-in counters are blocked off by both separate security detectors as well as large uniformed soldiers with guns. I stroll on in quite happy with myself making my hour deadline with a few minutes to spare. No lines, great! Immediately I get motioned to the side to some podium where a woman tells me to set my bags down as she needs to ask me a few questions. So I see... El-Al is competing with the UK for the most anal entrance/exit procedures. But wait, I'm not at the border yet, and you aren't a guard, you are an airline. She asks me I'm not even sure how many questions over probably fifteen minutes. Really detailed questions, particularly when they saw my stamps from the Middle East a couple months back.

They take my bags into one of those small rooms where you see card-counters having their asses handed to them by some big knuckle-cracking casino minion in the movies, and they motion me in. They take me behind a curtain and strip-search me, literally. My quicksilver shirt comes off, my little plaid shorts come off, my Havianas are taken to another room for analysis. I wish I could say after all but my undergarments were taken from me then came some lovin. Not so much. The guard sticks her hand UNDER MY BRA to feel the stitching, wiring etc. She then asks me to pull down my underwear a bit. Uh, excuse me? I can understand if I looked like a crazed terrorist with big grannie panty Depends on or something, but really. I am a little girl who wears little underwear, thus making said piece of cloth in question even smaller really. What could possibly fit under there? She runs her finger under the string while I look around for the blinking red light of a hidden camera.

After being authoritatively violated they let me put some clothes back on, and I sit in a waiting room while they take apart my entire backpack and carry-on backpack. They pull all my chargers out and ask me to match each to its reason for existence. I turn on every electronic device, they take sample pictures with my cameras. They dump all my little underwears out in a basket and go through them (again, violated, really.) I mean, they really go through everything. My entire back is dumped inside out, every little earring I have is loose swimming in a whole pile of shit. Toiletries, makeup, electronics, clothes, underwear. First Aid kit is taken apart. Tampons swimming around everywhere.

What a f*cking pain in the ass, really. After 45 minutes, the guards tell me I must hurry on and board the flight while they finish with my bags. Unfortunately, they say the laptop will have to be checked in. What? Who checks in their laptop? No way, man. Well, I lose the battle and my laptop too. I head to boarding and almost get on the plane when the security escort gets a blip blip in Hebrew on his comm and stops dead in his tracks. He puts his arm out in front of me and tells me they have more questions for me. They have found an electronic device in my shoe. Silly me, I forget to tell them I had a tiny Nike+ running chip in the sole of my left shoe. I try to explain to him the system and how it tracks running distances and speeds etc. They look at me hesitantly, and tell me that my bags will not be coming on the flight after all, they need more time for my bags but my person can go. Bags will come on the next flight to Tel Aviv.. which is in 8 hours and lands in Tel Aviv at 4am the next morning, so actually I won't get my bags til midday. It's around now when I decide I hate Israeli airlines.

I should have flown Air France.

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Comments

[Stephen]

wow
thats ridiculous

[Mirella]

Amy, I felt violeted just reading your text!!! That's terrible!!!!

[Spirit Wolf]

Sorry
But you can thank MUSLIM terorists for this kind of treatment. Since MUSLIMS can be of any race, no one can be sure of anyone who flies now, espeically if you have stamps from MUSLIM countries. Instead of whining like a bitch, why don't you look into WHY such security measures are needed in the FIRST PLACE?

[amyuyma]

Hilarious
I had to accept the above comment because it is so ignorant and inane, also definitely delivered in the most classy of phrasings. Wow, you make such a GREAT POINT! Thank you, Spirit Wolf, for reminding us that there are always people out there who 1) take themselves too seriously and 2) are a huge waste of time.

[ZoeB]

Oh my, Spirit Wolf, you just made my day...we live in a world with people like you? How quaint.