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A little girl's shiny shoes shout out: Red alert!
© St. Petersburg Times My 4-year-old daughter's shoes attract attention wherever she goes. They are covered with red sparkles and around our house we call them her Dorothy shoes. But you probably know better the celebrated original they imitate, the ruby slippers Judy Garland wore as she traveled the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz. Not only do Missy's shoes have a famous pedigree, they're a steal. You can buy them for $12.99 at Target. I bought a new pair last week because the previous pair had become too small and we had important places to go: Last weekend we flew to Philadelphia to visit her grandfather and her aunt. As I said, the shoes get remarked upon all the time. I never thought, however, that they would capture the fascination of security officials at Tampa International Airport. But what did I know? As Missy passed ahead of me through the metal detector, the machine started beeping. Before I could get through, somebody had led my daughter to a chair and told her to sit down. They told me to stand on the other side of a rope. You do not separate a mother and small child. I don't care if you're Chief Justice William Rehnquist or Tom Ridge, President Bush's head of homeland defense. You separate this mother from her child and you can guarantee that I will start beeping with alarm in my own way. Someone eventually said okay, and I was able to duck under a rope and get to my little girl and remove her shoes. I don't remember what I said to explain to her why this was happening, and whatever it said had no effect. She was enjoying the fuss. The security man was back in a minute with the shoes, and we were soon on our way to our gate. Everything was fine. A part of me found the whole routine vaguely humorous, a case of suspicion raised to the proportions of a Tom Clancy spy novel. But another part of me was deeply rattled. Last week, federal agents took over security at TIA. More than 500 people, half of them supervisors, half inspectors -- are checking out the tens of thousands of people who fly out of the airport each day. I know the rules of the game have changed completely since Sept. 11, and I suspect that as the inspectors are being trained, the bar has been raised even higher. But high enough to snag a 4-year-old girl? Did somebody honestly think that a preschooler would be set up to blow up a plane, like a pint-sized Palestinian suicide bomber blowing up an Israeli disco? Or that I was using her to imitate Richard Reid, who was arrested last December on an overseas flight when he tried to ignite his sneakers, which contained plastic explosives? And that, if any of this were true, I would be dumb enough to use easily noticed shoes that set off a metal detector? Anything's possible is the answer to those questions; that's how much the climate has changed. Even a child dragging a stuffed dog she calls Lovey is suspect. Even Lovey passes through the X-ray machine. Some day when she's older I'll tell my daughter of this search of her shoes, and why. Already, she talks about what she knows, not about the shoes, but about why they had to be inspected. She saw the pictures on TV. This is her translation: Bad men hit a building with an airplane. This is her fear: Will the plane hit the building again? No, no, no, I say. I try to distract her with toys or cartoons. Her mind jumps to the next thing that captivates her, Dora the Explorer on TV or the cat stretching out on the floor. For the record, Missy's shoes did not set off the metal detector on the trip back to Tampa. Don't ask me why, for I don't know. I could have worried that security in Philadelphia was sloppy, but I would drive myself crazy with such thoughts. I held the hand of my little girl in her sparkly shoes. They brought Dorothy good fortune, and us too -- an uneventful and safe return home. -- You can reach Mary Jo Melone at mjmelone@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3402.
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Times columns today Mary Jo Melone John Romano From the Times Metro desk |
