Four days later, and it’s still ringing in my ears. There were four words I heard last week that nearly put me alongside Lloyd Braun in the nut house. Matt McCoy’s character on Seinfeld is famous for saying “serenity now, insanity later”, but for my experience at the Smithsonian Institute Air & Space Museum last Thursday it was insanity then, insanity still.

“Bags only!”

So here’s what happened. After a day of walking around The Mall showing my wife all of our capital city’s monuments and memorials (she is Zimbabwean-born and had never been to D.C.), we decided to head over to the Air & Space Museum before meeting some friends at Hotel Washington’s roof deck for drinks. If you have never been to this particular branch of the Smithsonian, you’ve got to check it out. The building itself is gargantuan. It doesn’t quite match the size of the VAB at Cape Canaveral, but for all it contains it is impressive. There are hundreds of original and replica exhibits to see, including the Wright 1903 Flyer; the Spirit of St. Louis; the Apollo 11 command module Columbia; and Neil Armstrong’s space suit he wore on the Moon in ’69. If that doesn’t impress, the number of airplanes hanging from the ceiling are both a tribute to the golden age of flight and a strain on the neck.

As my wife and I walked into the Museum, we were greeted by a fairly large, middle-aged female security guard standing adjacent to an X-RAY machine, conveyor belt, and stack of plastic trays similar to those you’d find at your local airport’s TSA checkpoint.

She said in plain English without a smile, “bags only.”

With out a sign, panel, label, indicator or notice of any kind in sight, I simply stared back at her wondering what on Earth she meant. Was I not allowed to take the umbrella I was holding in my hand into the museum? What about our D70 and heap of peripherals? And the ½-liter Nalgene full of water, and Mars bar we had saved to hold off starvation?

I calmly asked, “I’m sorry, what does that mean?”

I should’ve known this was coming. She replied with the grace of a dump truck driving through a nitroglycerin plant.

“Bags only.”

Of course. Again, with a little less calmness in my voice, I asked, “Bags only. What does that mean, exactly?” I bet you can’t guess how she replied? “Bags only.�? This continued for what seemed like 5 minutes. At this point, there’s smoke coming out of my ears. The handful of other rent-a-cops on the other side of the checkpoint are rolling their eyes and snickering. I think I heard one of them say under his breath, “Oh God, here we go.�? There is a queue of visitors piling up behind me. My wife is turning red. The guard is trying to hurry my apparently extreme ineptitude by now screaming “bags only!�? Why can’t this woman simply tell me what she wants me to do? Finally, as the entire museum is staring at me slowly navigating this checkpoint, she holds out the plastic tray and says at the top of her lungs, “bags only!�? At last! Yes, I realize that she wants me to put only my bag in the tray. She is, of course, repeatedly yelling “bags only!�? as I proceed through the X-RAY gate. Even twenty five steps after clearing the checkpoint, she is still yelling. At the information desk about 100 feet from the checkpoint, still yelling. I cannot believe my ears. I am imagining my wife and I in some basement room at the Museum being interrogated by the FBI, unable to escape the frantic questioning of an under-trained field agent the day after 23 extremists were arrested in connection with a terror plot in London. Instead of turning back and giving her a taste of her own medicine, I just kept walking, head down, saying over and over to myself “serenity now, serenity now, serenity now.�? Two and half hours later, we made it out alive.

But here I am, four days later, and clearly insane. Just as Lloyd said. Having just read ALA #221, I can’t help but think about the similarities between navigating a website and navigating a security checkpoint. Where am I? Where can I go? And, most importantly, how can I get there? If the security team had thought to put a sign reading “Please place your bags on the belt�?, all of this would have been avoided. How does someone with a hearing problem get past the guard I encountered to see a great museum? I guess they don’t care much about accessibility. Or first impressions. It will be a while before I go back to that museum, and I’m sure I’ll recover some day, just not today.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 12 pm and is filed under me, news, people, quirky, travel.