Screening for Stupidity

At the airport, going through security.

I arrive at a new machine, not the old metal detector, but a big gray booth that reminds me of the glassed-in booths on the 1950s quiz shows, the kind that Charles Van Doren got caught in. It is open on the side near me, but on the far side is a Plexiglass door, that opens like a clamshell.

The security officer cheerfully reminds me to remove blazer, shoes, etc., and empty my pockets, and I want to ask him, “What does this new thing check for? Stupidity?” But I don’t, because there is a big sign hanging overhead that says jokes are taken seriously. The one place in all the world I want to be taken seriously is in an airport security queue, but the one thing I could say that they would take most seriously would also get me into big, five-to-15 trouble.

I do the security strip and the officer directs me to enter the booth. I stand at the entry. It looks like something you would design to lure a mouse inside, then trap him. I step in and peer through the Plexiglass shield, trying to remember the Best Supporting actor for 1949. Then: Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff! In rapid succession, puffs of air fired at me, that ruffle my clothes. I don’t flinch, but I get the feeling that I have just been biopsied.

I stand and wait. Red lights turn green, a chime sounds, and the Plexiglass clamshell door opens. I step forward. I am clean, but I have no idea of what. Karen, who went through before me, says the jets are supposed to ruffle up explosives residue, which if present, would be detected, and action taken.

Action taken! The floor opens beneath me and I am dropped through, into an abbatoir, which is the device popping immediately to mind as the only one befitting an individual who has failed a machine devised to sniff out a man with a pound of C4 wrapped around his belt.

Walking on, a vague sense of outrage rises, at such a machine being placed in the way of ordinary, everyday individuals whose only immediate interest in life is getting to Del Ray Beach, Raleigh, or in my case, Kenosha. Of course the booth will have earned its keep if it does detect the one among many who does have the C4 wrapped around his belt.

But if we as a nation are willing to support a machine to screen the masses, it should be possible to support a machine to screen the few. We could in fact use a machine that screens for stupidity. It shouldn’t be any more difficult to detect than explosives. Tweak these booths to do that job and put them between humans and the place they register to become candidates for public office. If they fail, drop them into the whirling knives before they can get through and drop the rest of us into modern airport security lines, and other ratholes.