The Potty Mouth at the Table by Laurie Notaro Page A

was . . . extensive. Now, sure, I was naturally wearing the tightest spandex sausage casing known to the female gender,and I was as taut as a full helium balloon or a vacuum-sealed ball of mozzarella. But believe me, if I had a cookie bomb shoved into my girdle, you could not spell yeast infection fast enough, and that’s enough of a deterrent for me to reject being a terrorist.
    “Um,” I started to say.
    “Ma’am,” the agent said again as she came around to my side. “Is there metal in your hip?”
    “No, there is not,” I said, as firm as I dared. “I don’t know what scan you are reading, but it’s not mine.”
    “It’s yours,” she said, running her hand down the outside of my leg, and then back up the inside of my leg and right back to ground zero. Where she had clearly just been.
    “Okay,” I said, without a thought, and then added, “That’s enough. That is enough.”
    She went back down the other leg and then back up again.
    “This is unnecessary,” I said, louder, and without any control over my mouth, because once, twice, three visits to the same region was enough to flip the switch, and the only reason the switch didn’t get flipped on the first visit was because, yes, I was on Ativan and my delay times were appropriately slow. Normally, if you stick your gloved hand into my high-rent parts without proper authorization once, you’d get a tooth knocked out. Three times and I’d be suckingthe eyeballs out of your face and spitting them back at you.
    From behind me, she went back a fourth time, and that was when I, knowing better, knowing that I could be detained and cuffed and held by the authorities for standing up for myself, began to yell, “I demand that you stop. This is unnecessary! You are violating my civil rights! You are violating my civil rights! ”
    But I couldn’t stop myself. It was impossible. And that’s when people stopped and stared. But I said it again, and again, and again, until she finally dropped her hand and walked away.
    “That was bullshit,” I said loud enough for the people now watching me to hear. “She did not need to touch me like that. It was bullshit.”
    And then I waited. I waited to be led away to some windowless al-Qaeda room where I would not be read my rights because in an airport security line, you simply don’t have any. Oh well , I thought, it might not be so bad . I could start a knitting club at Gitmo; I mean, everyone needs a prayer rug and a beanie, right? That could be fun. Or maybe a book club, or, more accurately, the Quran Club, that might be enlightening—it’s probably better than The Help . Just trying to look on the bright side here, because man, I really friggin’ hate hummus. And falafel. Oh, falafel.
    But no one came. No one took my arm. No one said, “This way, please, Metal Rib Bomber.” I was just there by myself, with my arms outstretched, standing on a mat with my feet spread. The people in the security line went back to gathering their shoes, suitcases, laptops. I found my boots at the end of the conveyor belt, along with my purse that had five packets of fiber powder in it, and my artfully packed suitcase. I gathered everything up, and pulled on my boots.
    I got to my gate just as my plane was shooting down the runway, then tilted upward and lifted off into the sky.

BUSTED
    Dear Municipal County Clerk:
    Let me start by saying I am sure you don’t have an easy job. I suppose that’s apparent by the fact that you have to sit behind shatterproof glass, which says to me that you have your share of irate customers on a daily basis, and you probably see crazier things and touch dirtier objects than the girl who works the return counter at Walmart.
    However, just because you deal with people paying their fines and court fees as a result of lawlessness does not entitle you to jump to conclusions about every formerly law-abiding citizen who steps up to your window. Lawbreaking is a spectrum, you know, with all sorts of