Maria walked slowly from the rental car drop off to the entrance into the airport terminal, soaking in the dry heat of the El Paso fall. Although the bright sunlight was savage to her skin, Maria enjoyed the dryness in the air, her perspiration just disappeared as quickly as it came so she didn't have to worry about the embarrassing wet stains under her arms and even worse, under her breasts.
Stepping into the terminal she was hit with a blast of cold air and was immediately thankful she carried a light sweater carefully arranged in her carry on bag. Actually she had planned to carry her small suitcase onto the plane, but new security measures forbid carrying even a tube of toothpaste onto the plane, so she checked the bag and headed for the gate.
She had arrived at the airport a full three hours before the scheduled departure time to allow for the increased security, so as she walked toward escalator up to security, she mentally prepared herself for a gauntlet. These days you might as well get undressed as buzzers and hand wands squeaked and squealed all too frequently. Anyway, as she rode up the escalator she surprisingly found only a few people in line ahead of her.
Saying to herself, "Hey, this is not going to be too bad," she put her carryon up on the table, and grabbed a plastic bin to put her shoes in. She let the bin and bag slide off through the x-ray viewer and walked through the metal detector.
"Brrrrie, brrrrie, brrrrie the alarm sounded and she stopped. Damn! "I forgot to take off my watch," she mumbled to the security agent and backed back through the detector. Removing her watch, she set it in the small, white circular bin and set it on the conveyor belt and then walked through the metal detector again, once again setting off the shrill alarm.
"My pen?" she asked the security agent, who just shrugged his shoulders.
Mary removed the pen from her blouse pocket, once again placing it on a smaller bin and letting it run down the conveyor. She then moved forward and once again set off the alarms.
"You only get three chances before we have to wand you," the security agent said. He then turned his head and whispered into a small radio. A female security agent immediately appeared carrying a wand and a clipboard.
"If you please ma'am, please follow me."
"What about my luggage?" Maria asked.
Nodding her head at the other security agent, she told Maria, "He'll get it for you"
They moved into a small room with two chairs and a table. They waited until all the luggage and accessories were carried in and placed on the table. "I'll need to run this wand over you," the agent said stepping closer to Maria.
Running the wand down Maria's back, the agent said, "With the heightened security, we've got the metal detectors cranked way up." She moved the wand to scan down Maria's front and as it passed over her breasts it began to alarm. Once it passed her breasts it went silent again.
"Would you mind removing your blouse?" the agent asked.
"Is it absolutely necessary?"
