Whole Body Scan or Pat Down and Pneumonia? Decisions, decisions!

As I prepare to book my trip to NYC for some Christmas shopping and the holiday festivities only  a big city like New York gives one, I am starting to ponder the  TSA security measures recently instituted to protect the traveling public.

Personally speaking, the whole body scan, while seeming innocuous to some, is a big turn off to me.  Like with so many things, years down the road we will find out that the machines, with repeated use,  subjected the flying public to more harmful rays than was first anticipated....and guess what...?  To the people that were harmed by taking Avandia or many of the other drugs that were eventually taken off the market after they were found to do more harm than good,  could this be another case of  "repent at leisure?"

As it is, too many doctors already subject too many patients to unnecessary X-rays and CT scans to protect themselves from lawsuits.  And,  to be fair, too many patients ask for them to put their minds at ease about some nagging sense of doom of diseases,  real or imagined.  We are already accumulating too many "rads" as it is and adding another unknown when we fly is just one rad too many for me.

So the question remains,  take the rads or subject to a pat down?

Much as I don't relish it, I'm afraid with me it will have to be the pat down.   Preparing for the pat down will require some defensive maneuvers and these are the best I can come up with at the moment.  

I will be wearing a pair of stretchy, snug fitting, soft denim jeans and a very fitted t-shirt with a non padded, no under wire bra.    The only big decision here is:  Should I wear a "see through" tee as well?   I could easily  wear one under the cardigan sweater I will remove, along with my jacket when I go through security. Not usually my style, the see through, but I'm willing to sacrifice style for less patting.

Will my plan of  "less is more" work towards  making the pat down a little less invasive, as in a case of "what you see, is what you get...or have?"    I've heard some people, as a protest, are going to strip down to their skivvies.   Hopefully I  won't be driven to this,  because while I still have a pretty decent shape, I don't relish  the thought of catching a cold.

The irony of some of these plans, will be the fact that contracting a bad cold or bronchitis may  later necessitate having to submit to a chest X-ray to see whether we have contracted pneumonia.  Why did I not think this would be another Catch 22, like everything else?  Stupid me.  Can we sue the TSA for our medical bills?

As a thought, couldn't the TSA at least get some agents who look like Tom Selleck, Pierce Brosnan,  Denzel Washington or  Gerard Butler to do the pat downs?   Better that then a burly female TSA agent!  Yes,  I know it would be discriminatory for the TSA to only hire good looking agents, but couldn't they add a $10 fee (the fee to go towards researching better screening methods)  for this extra added service of choice?   I would pay it.

Would you let this guy pat you down?

At least choosing the agent to do the pat down gives you sense of some kind of control over the process and to quote Mary Poppins, "A spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down!"   A frisk by a serious faced,  Brosnan look alike would certainly make the medicine taste a little more like dessert.  Not a bad way to kick off the season.

Anybody else with me?

TSA?   Are you listening? 


Songs out of tune, the words always a little wrong...Canzoni Stonate