The guy who ranted at the security guards at an airport the other day about his “junk,” recorded it all on his cell phone and then posted it on YouTube where it “went viral” is even more tiresome than Rand Paul. In case you don’t know the story already, and in case you do not make a conscious decision to stop reading right now, here it is. A man went to the airport. While going through the security line, one of the inspectors informed him that there would be a bit of inner-thigh patting down (that’s my wording) to which the man said, “If you touch my junk I’ll have you arrested.” More words were exchanged, and at one point the inspector told the guy that the pat down was procedural and not a sexual assault. “It would be if you weren’t the government,” was the reply.
So here we have a guy who is not only quite taken with his own penis but who also thinks it’s his mission in life, provided the camera is running, to take on “the government.” Much like the balloon boy and the JetBlue flight attendant, the story, and the dweeb at the heart of it, became something of a sensation. So much so, in fact, that our beloved Katie Couric carried the story at the top of her show. The PBS NewsHour also did a segment on it. I was shocked that the show included our most current renegade’s call to arms. At the same time, the NewsHour focused more on the Congressional hearing convened to address the issue of cargo, and some wonderful phrasings ensued, including “high-risk packages” and “blowback” over tighter security restrictions.
It all did make me wonder, though. Are we really that anxious to talk about penises? I mean, I think they make for good discussion myself, but my God. I wonder what kind of reception the story would have received had it been a woman who decided to take on “the government,” and then I couldn’t help but wonder if this might be a little bit of a window into why people are damn near feverish with curiosity (to the point of voting about it) when it comes to what the homos do in bed, or on the floor. I wondered whether or not there will be follow up on the fine that this clown may be smacked with compliments of the TSA. One of the few things I actually learned from this story is that it’s illegal to start going through airport security without finishing the procedure because that opens up the whole security system to terrorists coming to airport to test their latest tactics. The fine is $10,000, and I hope this guy gets double that, or triple. Part of his rant was that if procedures that fail to recognize the sanctity of his penis are not banned, he’s going to stop flying. Please, do. The fewer male types who blow the significance of their dicks so far out of proportion to their actual relevance we have on airplanes, in security lines and on the roads and highways leading to and from airports, the better. I wondered, briefly, how many seconds it would take for this guy to start blaming “the government” if someone will ill intentions were to make it through security. My guess: about two. And I wondered, of course, why it’s even considered a news story, but I’ll spare you that part of it today.
But the best part of the story, for me, is that this guy is a software engineer. That’s a perfect detail, I think. Software engineers are cool, they’re hip. They “get” technology, they’re “super smart.” They’re here to show us the way, to save us from ourselves, and they know it, and they’re paid for it. Having worked with software engineers for a decade now, the ego behind this story doesn’t surprise me at all. This particular software engineer is so focused on his “junk” that he filmed his trip through security and then shared it with the entire world, assuming, of course, that the entire world is as interested in his “junk” as it is in his software. Based on the obscene amount of coverage, I have to admit that he’s right.
