It happens to everyone at some point...someone with whom you are completely unfamiliar gets in your personal space and you find yourself groped. Sometimes said groping is "innocent." E.g., you're utilizing public transportation, it's rush hour, the train, bus, etc. is jam packed and the driver seems to have gone on another bender... The next thing you know, the train/bus is lurching to the side and someone around you loses the precarious grip they had on the handle and they grab
(innocently? conveniently?) onto you. And wouldn't you know it? A woman's breasts make for a great padded landing!
Sometimes the groping is "welcomed." E.g., you're at a bar/club and after a few drinks you decide that YES! You really CAN dance...so you make your way to the dance floor and find another delusional individual showcasing their "skills" too. We all know where this one is going...crowded dance floor groping can sometimes be unwanted, but for the most part, when you step foot out there, you're signing away your right to be upset if Gropey McFeelerson decides it's a good time to get acquainted with your private bits and pieces.
In the past week and a half there have been two occasions of groping that were neither innocent nor welcome.
(I'm only going to talk about the first one since it was way more embarrassing and that makes for a more interesting post) So...the first groping occurred last week when I was heading to Charlotte for work. Apparently the Jax airport has taken a leap into the new millennium with those nifty full-body scanners at the security checkpoint. The problem was this: there was no signage whatsoever explaining exactly how long one is expected to "assume the position." A quick Google image search demonstrated that other countries have learned such info is important for travelers, as illustrated by this lovely little sign from a foreign airport:
Had there been such a sign at the Jax airport, I would have known that I needed to keep my arms raised for 3 seconds. Instead, the security guy told me to put my arms up and then turned and walked away. I figured that meant he was finished so I put my arms down as they were doing the scan...subsequently ruining the scan and clearly frustrating the security guard.
(Hey, buddy...if you want someone to keep their arms raised, why don't you try using your words and telling them that??? I could have done without your sourpuss attitude, especially given what was to come as a result of my failed scan) Instead of simply running the scan again, I was relegated to the "you're an idiot that can't complete a simple task so now you get a special, personal scan" line.
That's right. Because I was unable to follow a seemingly easy routine, I was lucky
(yea, right) enough to be awarded with a full body check by another security agent. Perhaps I should have expected a more "thorough" check than in the good old days, but I was completely unaware of how I was about to be violated. What happened to that little wand-thingy they used to use to check for metal objects?!? Instead of that, for the next SEVERAL moments
(and with one of my co-workers standing there laughing at me) I had a random stranger groping me like I haven't been groped in months. Though the agent prefaced her groping by telling me she would use the back of her hand on my "private areas," I didn't fully comprehend just how intimate things were about to get until she was all up in my business. Suffice to say, I feel as though I don't need to make an annual appointment with my lady doctor this year since the agent completed a more than thorough check and I got the "all clear" in the end. Seriously though, that's the most "action" I've seen in the past two months. If that's not the saddest representation of my single status, I don't know what is!
And yet it still makes me laugh. The next time I'm going through security they'll have to drag me out of the damn full-body scanner because I'm not going to budge an inch until they tell me it's okay. Count this as another life lesson learned.
