This is seriously not my week.
Today at ATL they had managed to make every lane feeding a NoS the only option available. Period. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200. At 5p, it was all NoS, all the time.
So, I opted out.
No retaliatory wait like at SAN 2 days prior. My groper was suited up and retrieved me before the person behind had even put her arms up in surrender.
So he began his spiel:
TSA: I'll then place my hands on your upper leg and slide them up until I meet resistance"
barbell: I don't understand what you mean. What, exactly, are you going to touch.
TSA: I will slide my hand up your thigh until it meets resistance.
barbell: I assure you that there is nothing on the human body called "resistance."
TSA: It's the area where your leg meets your body.
barbell: You mean my crotch?
TSA: No, sir. The area where your leg meets your body.
barbell: That's what is known as my crotch. It is the area that includes my genitals. Are you telling me that you are going to rub my crotch?
TSA: I need to involve my supervisor... I've explained the procedure and he is questioning it.
3 Stripe: Do you have a problem?
barbell: No. I don't understand what you mean by resistance.
3 Stripe: He's going to put one hand on your outside leg and then run the other up your inner thigh until it meets resistance.
barbell: What do you mean be resistance?
3 Stripe: It's where his hand will stop. When it meets resistance.
barbell: I have advanced training in anatomy. There is nothing on the human body called "resistance."
3 Stripe: Since you're so smart, what's it called.
barbell: My crotch. Apparently you are obsessed with rubbing my crotch.
3 Stripe: There is no rubbing. You're welcome to leave right now.
barbell: Why must you touch my crotch.
3 Stripe: He isn't going to touch your crotch.
barbell: That's the resistance one would meet when rubbing the upper thigh to where it meets the body.
3 Stripe: Call it whatever you want. You get screened or leave.
So we began.
I asked that he change his gloves, to which he replied he already had new ones on. I protested that I didn't see it, and since a false positive was a one-way ticket to a private screening I needed to see him put on new gloves.
And then I asked that he swab them first. There wasn't the argument there was in SAN.
The 3 Stripe observed the whole thing and then walked away.
Following the screening I approached 3 Stripe and said, "May I provide feedback on the pat down?" To which he responded, "Of course."
"My father used to sexually abuse me. He would rub his hands on my upper thigh until he, too, met resistance. You are supervising the unprovoked genital manipulation of innocent people for a living. You are accepting pay to watch the sexual abuse and molestation of innocent people."
His response: "Have a nice day and enjoy your secure facility."
Mine: "You mean the same secure facility where one of your own abducted and then raped a woman? The same secure facility that leaves 10's of thousands of people unscreened as they are driven by the busload onto the tarmac? Rubbing my testicles isn't going to make this airport secure."
His: "Have a nice day."
I'd like to think I got a little under his skin. If nothing else I clearly made him uncomfortable.
So, datum point of one. When you have the nerve to file a complaint with a supervisor, it isn't reported. One of many reasons, I'm sure, that the complaints are so low.
Too bad for him, my flight was long enough to write a personal note to His Grace John Pistole. It awaits only a proofreading for tone from the spouse.