On a recent Sunday afternoon I flew to Boston out of Dulles. It was around 2pm, and it wasn’t a holiday. This is my story.
The very long security line slowly snaked its way up toward the tables where passengers were supposed to fill bins with all their bits and pieces that are required to go in bins. But when I got there, there were no bins left. I didn’t immediately notice this, so focused was I on getting my coat and shoes off and laptop out of my bag. I vaguely wondered why the bin I was putting my coat into had a big red X painted on the bottom, but in the interest of not being one of those people who slow the line down, I ignored it and dropped my into it. The guy behind me kindly pointed out that this was not a real bin – it was bolted to the cart on which it sat. I responded, “Oh,” and picked my jacket back up. I glanced around and noticed that the security line next to us had bins stacked almost as high as my shoulders. Between me and this plethora of bins was a very big security guard and the line of people going through that security lane, secure in their abundence of bins.
Normally I’m somone who will take charge in a situation like this, but I tend to become more passive when I’m in airports and surrounded by no less than 6 security guards. As I was looking from the big pile of bins to our own lack of bins, the guy behind me in line said to the big security guard “Sir? We don’t have any bins.” The security guard replied definitively “Ok, sir.” He then lifted his walkie-talkie and said “Bin run needed, security lane 10.”
At this point I started to become a little fascinated with the scene: The security lines were very long, my lane had no bins, the other lane had lots of bins, and the security guard standing arms length from bins, chose to follow what was clearly the “standard procedure”. I then looked ahead of me and noticed that the family with the baby in the wheely chair that had used up the remaining 10 bins before I got there, had finally started to send their stuff through the scanner and though it was soon going to be my turn, I had no bins. I looked at the security guards behind the scanner and back at the security guard between our lanes, and started to wonder what would happen if I just put my stuff on the belt without a bin. Would everyone freak out? Would they stop our lane until the “bin run” had arrived? Would I be forcebly removed for violating airport security standards by letting my sneakers sit free on the belt?
I stalled by focusing on getting my laptop out of my bag, and then closing my bag up again. There was now room for the guy behind me to start filling his bins with his bits and pieces,if he had bins to fill that is. He and I looked at each other, then at the tower of bins in our neighboring lane, then back at each other. Then a new security guard walked up to the original security guard and started to do crowd control in the bottle neck of people who had formed trying to see why our lane wasn’t moving. The man behind me said “We have no bins.” She said “Yeah, ok.” then picked up her walkie-talkie and said “Bin run needed. Lane 10.” The she turned her back on us and stood shoulder to shoulder with the original security guard and proceeded to give random people waiting in line intimidating looks.
I started to laugh. It seemed like the right reaction to the situation. Then I lifted my wheely suitcase up onto the table, still curious as to how this was going to play out. The man behind me started to put his stuff on the table sans bins as well, and I wondered if having two of us do it would make it better or worse.
Suddenly, I noticed some activity behind the guy behind me. I looked up and saw that a man a few places back in line had decided to be bold, to take one for the team, and had pushed past the two security guards and was heading directly for the tower of bins that belonged to Lane 11. Everyone turned to watch, including the people in Lane 11, the security guards and everyone in my lane. It was like it was happening in slow motion.
I looked from this crazy free thinking man to the security guards and back to him as he got closer to the bins, wondering what they would do, but they seemed as stunned as the rest of us. This everyday hero just pushed past the stunned travelers in Lane 11, and grabbed about 6 or 7 bins, then turned and walked back toward our lane. I thought for sure the security guards would taze him or something on his way back in retribution for his flagrant disregard for procedure. But they didn’t. Their heads swiveled like everyone else’s to follow him back to our lane as if they waiting to see what he would then do with his contraband bins.
The man plopped the bins down on the table and suddenly everything came back into real time. I shook myself out of my stupor and grabbed two bins and began hurredly shoving my bits and pieces into them while simultaneously moving forward toward the scanner.
As I pushed my full bins onto the belt I thought “Why didn’t I think of that?” and wondered if just maybe the guards were thinking the same thing. As I turned to walk through the body scanner, a guard held up a hand to stop me and I noticed that a big cart full of bins was coming through the scanner from the other direction. The bin run had arrived to Lane 10! But the security guard pushing the cart seemed overwhelmed and perplexed at all the people and stopped with his cart in the small space between lanes 10 and 11, and seemed to evaluate the presence of bin towers on one side, and the meager handful of bins making their way down the tables on our side, and finally, the empty cart. He looked at the security guards who had called him, and they immediately resumed staring down passengers further back in line.
Finally coming to a decision, the guard took one hand off the cart of bins, and placed it on the cart without bins, and began to attempt to maneuver the empty one out of the way so that he could replace it with the full one, but never letting go of the full one, lest some weary traveler be so bold as to attempt to get a bin off the cart before it was in place.
My rapt observation of this scene was interupted by “Ma’am? Ma’am. Come on through please.”
Refocused, I quickly walked through the scanner and was met with bells and buzzers. “OH! My Phone!” I cried out, shocked I’d forgotten to take it out of my pocket and put it in the bin. I dashed back through the scanner, pulled my phone out, grabbed one of the tiny bins that look like hats, and experienced a moment of panic at the idea that my phone would go through seperate from my other bags. As if reading my thoughts, the guy behind me grabbed his bin just before it went through so that I could set my hat/bin on the belt behind my bag that had just gone through.
I turned and dashed through the scanner again, now feeling obligated to hurry b/c I had become the source of the hold up – my worst fear. More bells and buzzers. The guard sent me back through, asked if I was wearing a belt (i wasn’t), had me empty my pockets and when I only came up with a piece of paper he said “hmph.” I looked at him across the divide of the scanner and suppressed a giggle. I half expected him to pick up his walkie-talkie and announce “Confusion. Lane 10.” Then he said, “ok, try just walking through real slow, exactly in the middle of the arch,” and he focused his eyes on my feet as if it guide me on the right path.
Slowly I stepped forward, judged that I was equa-distance from each side and stepped through. This time I was greated with silence and a satisfied smile on the face of the guard. I dashed forward, grabbed my shoes and shoved my feet into them while trying to put my laptop back into my bag and get out of the way before the guy behind me came through. Arms full but shoes on, I moved to the row of chairs set up away from the security lanes where people are meant to stop and collect themselves. As I rearranged my laptop in my bag, and found my boarding pass, I heard “Hey! Uh..Hey, miss,” from over at the scanner, but I ignored it…until I realized that I didn’t have my phone. I turned and saw the guy who had been behind me holding it up and he and the guy behind him were waving at me. I immediately ran back and grabbed the phone, thanking them as I did. As soon as I had my phone I realized I’d left my bags “unattended,” and had an irrational fear that I was about to get yelled at. I turned back to see that my coat had fallen off the chair and was splayed across the floor and my laptop was hanging half out of the bag about to join the coat. I ran back, grabbed my coat in the same motion that I grabbed my lap top and put both back up on the bench. Stopping to take a get my breath and push my hair off my face, I noticed two security guards leaning on the wall openly watching me and shaking their heads in what could only identify as a combination of pity and disapproval.
And all because of the gross breakdown in the bin delivery system.
