Woo-Hoo! Kansas City marks my fifth frisking. To be honest, I went many, many flights without getting frisked at all, but now, it’s been 2-airports in a row. And since I look scarier everyday, I imagine the pace of the friskings will pick up. OK, so a pale, somewhat crazed and wild-eyed guy wearing a Santa suit and lugging a bag of electronic equipment is probably a pretty good candidate for extra screening. But the 87-year old woman with 17 great-grandchildren I sat next to on the flight from New Orleans? She was frisked too, but I suppose that’s what makes the security checks random. But you want to know my BIGGEST beef?

There is something I would like to say to the TSA folks, though: stop putting my wet, muddy, snow-covered shoes on my laptop! Come on! You make me put my laptop in its own bin, so why can’t you just leave it in its own bin when you’re finished pulling all my stuff apart?

Is that too much to ask? I’m always cooperative (even when 2-minutes away from missing a connecting flight) and I am even willing to joke about the suit after all these long, long days.

So, do me a favor, and keep the shoes off. The good people at Apple went out of their way to design a slick looking machine. It doesn’t need my Reebok footprints all over it!

–GS (flying over the great state of Wisconsin)