continuing...

...
Aunty Sandy hugs me and asks me if I want her to wait there to make sure I get through okay. I say no, I'm sure I'll be fine. I spoke too soon. I walk straight to the frong of the line, give the TSA lady my boarding pass and ticket (already out so as to speed up the process and not cause problems). She says I'm going to have to go over to this other inspection line. Great. I want to ask her if it's a random selection process or if it's every ten people or if she profiled me as a terrorist. Me, a white girl wearing tevas, an over the shoulder backpack, blue linen cropped pants, a teal t-shirt, a bright yellow short sleeved hoodie with a "goofball" pin on my shoulder carrying a poppy flower bag with a nalgene hanging from the strap. I've got a friendship bracelet and hari tie around my wrist, chipped light pink fingernail polish and a cross around my neck. I wouldn't exactly describe me as threatening. Though I guess that'd be the best disguise so she takes me over to this seperately roped off area and calls for a female check. Nice.
This friendly looking woman walks up to me and talks me through the process. I have to step into this time machine looking box that will puff air at me. She warns that there will be six to eight puffs of strong air. Then the doors will open and I'll take off my shoes and go through. No big deal. Yeah right. So first of all, the air puffs bolwo my shirt almost up past my bra. Hello, world. Here are my boobs. Awkward. So I kinda giggle and the machine tells me not to move. It says I can go when the red light turns green. Only, the red light never turned green. Great. So the second friendly TSA lady sighs and tells me to come back out of the time machine the way I came in. Fabulous. They're gonna arrest me and now I'm really going to miss my connection. She's carrying my bags in one hand, smiles at me, then says into her walkie-talkie, "We've got a puffer alarm." No joke. I want to laugh but stifle it because I don't want to give them any other reason to be suspicious of me. A million questions are racing through my mind. WHat does this test for? What did they find? Are my shoes made of something flammable? Does my jewelry have too much metal? What's going on??? My eyes must have given me away because she reassured saying, "I don't know what it thinks it found, but this puffer machine tests for explosives. Ok. So I"m so freakin hot, I'm now considered explosive? Not bad... Another lady (the one on the other end of the walkie-talkie I imagine) came over and printed something that looked like a receipt from the puffer time machine. Good grief charlie brown. Now barefoot, I follow the three of them (as we've now attracted a man who is carrying my shoes) over to another area in th emiddle of the whole security area. She has to pat me down. Then they have to look through my bags, rub this cloth all over everything, then test the cloth for explosives. I peeked at the machine screen and it said I passed. Thank God. So I repack my bags, put my shoes back on and walk to my gate.
So here I am writing my first adventure down in my travel journal--and I haven't even left Porltand yet. I'm just hopng this isn't some sort off omen or sign for how the rest of my trip will go. If it is, I'm never leaving America again. Sheesh. Oh and on top of all that., I forgot my sweatshirt. Damn. I hope I don't freeze on the plane ride over there (Oh--it's winter too. I should probably buy one in San Francisco or Sydney.) or die for that matter. God bless me, PLEASE!!!
P.S. I'm hungry!!!