Fascist Filth

In the last half of the 20th century, when I was still young, I used to plan one or two trips by air every year, even if it was only for a weekend to someplace interesting.  However, as the years went by and sabotage of aircraft increased, FAA agents (Federal Aviation Administration) became increasingly fascistic in their pre-flight boarding inspections to safeguard American air travel.  FAA agents began to treat airplane passengers undergoing their inspections not as customers on holiday or at business but as dangerous persons to be controlled.  The FAA agents' demeanor was cruel (lifting grandmothers out of their wheelchairs to check for drugs or explosives that might have been tucked underneath), unscrupulous (spending too long flipping through passenger's underwear in a suitcase while ostensively looking for contraband), arrogant, emotional, and obscurantist.  I am not sure what that last descriptor actually means here but I have included it because the tone of it seems right.

One of the last times, if not the last time that I flew for pleasure is still a repulsive memory.  I had removed my shoes as directed and stood in line with only my thin nylon stockings between my bare feet and the ratty airport carpet.  A FAA agent motioned me forward for their pre-flight inspection of me, but the ten foot length of airport carpet that I was expected to traverse shoeless and exposing my hosieried feet to goodness knows what filth was spotted and stained with countless stains and smears.  I simply could not put my essentially bare feet on it, so young woman that I was I stood there frozen silent, mentally whimpering.  A large male FAA agent came bounding up to me with his arms outstretch, "I'll carry her over!" and to my horror he picked me up in front of everyone in the airport and carried me across the filthiest part of the airport carpet.  The FAA agent was very pleased with himself, I was mortified.

20th Century Airport Carpet Filth

by Annmarie Throckmorton, copyright 2025