I can't fly. It's as simple as that. If I need to go someplace, I drive. If I can't drive, I don't go. We travel a lot on a big loop around the country each year. We go west in the fall and east in the spring, occasionally switching our schedule after the last time I flew anywhere.

It's bad enough that I'm in a power wheelchair, airlines HATE powerchairs, but since the TSA has came about, things have gotten really stupid.

The fool ran his wand all over me with it squealing like a pig with it's tail in a door. The he told me that I'd have to stand up since my chair was interfering with his wand. As I explained that if I could stand up, I wouldn't need the wheelchair. He actually asked me why not. Because I'm paralyzed you oaf! So he tells me to move aside and that his supervisor will come up to make a manual inspection as he clears his line.

When the "lady" comes up the hall I hear her saying "oh no, another ******* wheelchair. Like I'm deaf as well. I actually greet her pleasantly, (kindness turns away wrath - but it can't fix stupid) she first repeats her underlings test, with the same results and orders a "airline isle chair" for me to transfer into and my wife begins to assist me in transferring - these "public servants" grabbed her hands telling her that she can't come near me because she has already been screened. Like I'm carrying some deadly disease and she might contaminate them all. When she pointed out that I required trained assistance to do this safely, and they didn't have the training. They then called MORE TSA agents trying to find one who had a brain - they failed. While none of them knew what to do, the only other person there was not allowed near me. After a half hour of this circus, calling the airport nurse (who suggested allowing my wife to help me since she was not trained, the TSA supervisor allowed my wife to help me do the 2 minute maneuver.

Then the head "person" waved her wand over me and it started squealing again. No I don't have anything in my pockets, nothing in my billfold BUT I have had both hips replaced, I have shrapnel in my left leg and a chunk in my right shoulder. I inform them of this and they ask for my medical magnetic (something) card, to which I reply, huh???? We can't let you on the plane without it, you might have a bomb. I did not tell her that if I had such a bomb and set it off right there it would take at least three days to replace them all. I didn't say that, but I wanted to.....

We were then sent to a private screening room where my clothes were taken off in privacy and the nurse checked all my scars. If you have ever seen a hip replacement scar, you'll never forget it, they are l-o-n-g and wrap from above the beltline, down the side, down to just above the knee. The shrapnel scars are pretty distinctive if you've every seen them and fortunately this nurse had trained in a VA hospital and had seen some.

She gave me a letter identifying what she saw and my medical history so that we would not have so much trouble on our return leg. It list her private number at the airport and the TSA agent just called her and we flew through the inspection in LA.

As I said, now we drive and if it's cross country, so be it.

Dear government functionary, whose salary I pay,

I am not afraid of terrorists. I do not consent to your ridiculous laws, rules and regulations that are supposed to "protect me." Please leave me the eff alone and stop wasting my money. That includes keeping your and your functionaries' filthy, perverted hands off of my private parts.

Sincerely,
Your Boss

This is why my family does not fly. I am not sure what I would do if someone touched one of my daughters like this. I don't care if it was a woman or not.

I don't understand why this is being allowed to happen. Why aren't groups like the ACLU and others standing up for women like this?

Flew out of DIA a few months ago. The mm-wave scanners falsely identified "points of interest" on my body because I was wearing a loose skirt. The folds confused the machine, the TSA woman said. So I got a pat down, and the woman slid her hand up my leg and around my behind. But first she was kind enough to tell me she would use "the back of her hand". Because you know, it's only uncomfortable if someone touches you with a palm. Um... right. 0_o

For the first time this fall I was taken out of line for a "pat down" I didn't set off the metal detector so I asked why I was being taken out of the line. The woman who searched me said she saw a button on my shirt. The button was plastic! The groping wasn't as bad as what the story describes but still ticked me off. I don't see the point in the TSA. I remember when airlines had their own security and you could see your family members through to the gate. There was terrorism back then just like there is now - so what's the point?