I feel that I must borrow a story from an acquaintance of mine for this post. I will call him Zigfried. Zigfried is a road warrior. He is one of those people who truly dominate all forms of asphalt and air to get from point A to point B.

In this instance, Z. was travelling to the west coast on business. He happened to be in the air when the unfortunate incidents of a couple of weeks ago insured that countless innocent people will be uncomfortably thirsty as they wait to board their flights due to a few woolie-bearded zealots wanting to blow up airplanes with a mixture of gatorade and religious fanaticism. Well, he gets off the plane and begins the process of having his baggage scanned and checked to get on another flight. Z. dubbed one of the gate guards "Differently-abled angry knife-wielding sikh in a turban" for obvious reasons. In case the reader is unaware, sikhs go nowhere without this ominous-looking knife called a kirpan by their sides. So in summary there's this angry dude in a wheel chair with a knife. Here's a snippet of info from a googled site for the curious:

Sikh men wear a traditional knife, called a kirpan, as a symbol of baptism. Traditionally, the knife can be used only for self-defense or in defense of those who cannot defend themselves.

Check out a Sikh priest from a BBC news article:


Well, it would certainly give an air of "Don't mess with me, beyotch," wouldn't it?

Anyway, there's is the Sikh and his small army of Homeland Security drones scanning baggage, and behind Z. is a man. A loud man, mouthing off due to the delays. A mad, mouthy Palestinan man, carrying a duffle bag of sufficient size to carry a dead body in, to be exact. Z. awaits his turn at the xray machine, and he puts his jacket on the conveyor belt and passes through. For one reason or another, the guards put his jacket BEHIND the duffle bag. As he awaits on the other side for his jacket, the duffle bag comes through, and the Sikh's eyes grow to the size of saucers as the bag goes through, stops, goes backwards, and then fowards in several repetitive, jerky movements. Z. is immediately surrounded by fed drones who erroneously thought the bag belonged to him. They formed a circle and all had their hands on their pistols. "Don't move," one of them says. He looks at them in a mixture of shock/surprise and says "I don't even know that asshole." He then watches helplessly as ANOTHER group of drones on the OTHER side of the gate surround the loud, incensed Palestinan gentleman, who by this time is screaming in Arabic at the guards.

Finally, Z. is allowed to leave after the Sikh orders one of his henchmen to hurl his jacket back to him.

Later, after they were safely boarded onto the plane, Z. learned why the guards wigged out.

Loud, spittle-spraying Palestinan angry man had built...a robot. Yes, a homemade robot and was attempting to bring this aboard the plane. Why the HELL would you try to do something that stupid when you can't even drink a soda in peace now days.

You know, I remember the day I left JFK London-bound and carried a SWITCHBLADE on the plane with no problem. These morons have really ruined flying for the rest of the sane world.