Airport Security

This evening I went with my mother to Dulles Airport to pick up a family friend. This was a harrowing experience to say the least. The last time I picked up a friend at the airport was March 2001 - six months before 9/11. My, my how things have changed. Back in March 2001, I went met my friend at the gate. Today I had to wait by the stinking baggage carousel. Beside the baggage carousel is a walk way with doors thta only open outwards. Inside these doors are two "airport security agents." I use this word very loosely because Barney Fife would protect the country better than these two morons. My friend's airplane was a little late landing, so I had the opportunity to watch these yahoos. The one guard was a middle-aged, balding man who was wearing latex gloves. The other guard was a middle-aged woman who looked really happy to be at work. These guards have two jobs. The first job is to prevent individuals in the baggage area from entering the "secure" area. The second job is to make sure that individuals walking down from the terminal ONLY walk out the doors, not back up the walk-way. Last time I checked, if you were in a secure area and never left, you were still secure. Some poor kid that looked about 12 years old got separated from his parents and appeared at the door alone. He apparently wanted to walk back up to the terminal to try to find his parents, but the guy in latex gloves literally jumped in front of the doors and told the boy he had to go out! The poor boy looked like he was going to pee himself and the middle-aged guy was acting like the 12-year-old had an AK47 strapped to his chest. So to make a long story short, Nazi-security-guard made the little boy go out the doors and stand by himself by the baggage carousel until his parents appeared some 20 minutes later looking quite disheveled. This was probably because the parents had been frantically searching for their 12-year-old son for 20 minutes. Right before our friend came through the door, there was a changing of the guard. The middle aged woman was replaced by a young boy who looked like Napoleon Dynamite. The middle aged man was replaced by a twenty-something girl with a huge attitude problem. Well, I don't know about you, but I can certainly sleep better tonight knowing that Barney Fife is protecting our airports!