kamakawida

There are usually three phases in the journey through the metal detector at the airport.

First one is when you think, “right, everything is alright, I triple checked my pockets, I know whats in my bags and I am confident to go through”.

Second,  you look at the security officer on the other side of the detector, lock eyes and try to act as innocent and casual as possible. But as soon as you get in the metal detector your brain decides to go on a holiday and leaves you to fend for yourself. You keep on walking and expecting the detector to beep at any time so you do this semi stop jump start jerk movement, meanwhile you look at the security officer for any sign that they might react or stop you. Your walk at this point has turned to an unnatural disco/gangster/shuffle style walk and your face cant decide whether to try and look cool, happy, serious or relieved, which results in a weird kind of uneasy jittery constipated frown. By now the security officer looks at you even more closely as it is evident that you are not keeping your “shit” together. But you soldier on and keep walking until you pass the security officer nodding, smiling and mumbling something like “great teeth, thanks, see you byeee”. Where after he nods worryingly and you are through.

Third phase is the relived phase, when you look back one more time to see if the person scanning your bags has reacted to anything. Then you realise that you are through and this is when you start acting really cool again, “that was easy peasy, I am a seasoned traveler, I got this covered”. As you see your personal belongings coming down the conveyor belt from the machine you pick them up and take it to a table where you can put everything where it belongs whilst joyfully looking at the other people going through the same mental torment you just went through.