Read Your Rights

TODAY IS FRIDAY, THE GATEWAY TO REAL LIFE. I sat down this morning to write something brilliant, moving, hilarious, and earth shattering. After about 15 minutes of staring at a blank page I downed half of my coffee in one gulp and started looking through the detritus of links I’d saved on my phone. After another couple of minutes I came across a link that made me down the rest of my coffee.

There is a small business out there in the ether that sells underwear (Both M and F versions), but not just run of the mill undies – Oh, No! They are the purveyors of knickers that display the 4th Amendment to the Constitution in strategic locations. Because the Amendment is printed using a metallic ink it shows up quite clearly at the airport when the trolls of the TSA scan you as you are rushing to catch your flight.

For the uniformed, the 4^th Amendment to the United States Constitution (That’s ours) deals with “unreasonable search and seizure.” Just read the underwear for the complete text of the amendment. Unfortunately, the TSA Slugs are incapable of understanding these words.

I like this idea, the textual undies. I like the mild unrest it would engender among the TSA bozos. Over the years I have developed a deep seated disdain for the TSA and its blue-shirted sphincters. The TSA (“They’ll Steal Anything”) protects no one, stops nothing, understands less, and costs a boatload to maintain.

I do realize that an item such as the 4^th Amendment underwear might cause some unrest, delays, and possible fistfights in the airports, but the concept is rife with possibilities.

Imagine: “Theater of The Underwear.” With moderate electronic modification when a person (like me for instance) goes through the TSA gauntlet the Peeping Tom monitoring the video would be able to watch short dramatic presentations or maybe one of those wonderful TED Talks. That might be pushing the intellectual limits of the TSA crews – cartoons might be more appropriate. I think this is an idea that needs further study.

My wife, the lovely and nervously prescient, Dawn, thinks that I’m going to get myself arrested one of these days as we struggle our way through the airport. I disagree. I’ve never done anything arrest-worthy in my dealings with the TSA invertebrates. I do and will continue to answer their guttural questions with a fine layer of sarcasm. Half of the time it soars over their heads and the other half it goes right through them, but they don’t realize it until I’m long gone.

One time at the Corpus Christi airport one of the TSA bipeds was having trouble working a zipper (!) on my carry-on. I told her, “Here let me help you.” She jumped back and yelled at me. “Stay back! You have no rights!” I wasn’t going to let that one slide past me, so I answered her with, “How much you want to bet on that, Sweetheart?” I must have been the first person to ever challenge her. She had a shocked look on her face. Rather than continue our little tête-à-tête she pushed the bag toward me, unopened, and said, “You can go.”

And so I did.

It is the memory of incidents like that in Corpus Christi, that makes me look upon the idea of the 4^th Amendment Underwear as something that is long overdue.

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