I don't mind flying; it's airports I can't stand

Recently, I needed to make a trip to visit some relatives. These days, the way the economy and gas prices are, it turns out to be cheaper to fly. Even though, airlines no longer serve the delicious food of which they became famous.

Several aspects about airplanes give me cause for alarm. The person who designed the modern-day airplane must have used one of the dwarfs for a model. I’m thinking, Grumpy. The seats, for example, are not built for the average posterior. I know I need to go on a diet, but my airplane seat does not have to remind me of that auspicious fact.

The restrooms do not have any room whatsoever to rest in them. The last one I was in I had to step outside in order to change my mind. What were they thinking when they designed and built these restrooms?

However, I can live with some of these inconveniences. I do not really mind flying; it is the airports that I cannot stand.

It has been a while since I have flown, so I had forgotten some of the airport rigmarole that paying customers must go through.

After putting my personal belongings in the trays provided at the security screening area, I was to walk through an archway to make sure I was not transporting a bomb in my underwear.

As I walked through the buzzer went off. I took a pen out of my pocket.

Again, I walked through and the buzzer went off again.

I could not think of anything else to take off my person, so I took off my sweater. Maybe it was something in the buttons that the archway did not like?

Then the man on the other side of the archway spied what he thought was the trouble and said, “Sir, you have to take off your suspenders.”

“Say what?” I said in alarm.

“You have to remove your suspenders.”

I looked at the man and then said, “You do know the purpose of suspenders, don’t you?”

With a distant disdain in his voice he simply said, “Sir, you will have to remove your suspenders.”

By the tone of his voice, I ascertained that he did not have the foggiest idea of the purpose of a gentleman’s suspenders. I wear suspenders because they are fashionable, comfortable, and serve a vital purpose for me.

“Sir,” he said in a practiced monotone, “you will have to remove your suspenders.”

I saw no way around this obstacle and if I wanted to get onto the airplane, I would need to go through this archway. Slowly I took off my suspenders and put them in a tray to send through the scanner.

The archway buzzer did not go off this time, which was a relief to me, but once I was through the archway, things happened. As I reached for the tray on the conveyor, I suddenly felt a gentle breeze, heard several shrieks behind me and felt something grab my ankles.

Wardrobe malfunction!

Sure, you can grab your trousers and pulled them up but you still have to live with the fact that you actually mooned potential fellow passengers on the airplane.

After adjusting everything and picking up my briefcase, I noticed several people pointing in my direction and laughing. Believe me, a wardrobe malfunction is not anything to laugh, at unless of course it happens to someone else.

Sitting in the airplane waiting to take off a verse of Scripture dominated my thinking.

“These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” (John 16:33KJV).

Whatever our tribulations might be, we can rest unabashed in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

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