Bin Logic

My direct flight from Joburg to JFK was boarding in five minutes. As Indra and I approached my gate we noticed a line of security officers frisking people and searching bags. Indra and I were taking separate flights back to America but were planning to wait together at my gate until I took off.

“I’m not sure why we need to get frisked again,” I said under my breath, not looking for a response.

“Because we’re going to New York,” a voice declared from the next line over.

The speaker was a stout woman with close-cropped brown hair. She stared up at me, apparently waiting for me to acknowledge the logic of her explanation. I returned her stare with a look I’ve been perfecting during long plane rides and boring meetings over the past few years. A blank stare is a screen on which people can play whatever crazy movie their mind is directing. In this case, instead of receiving the true message behind my look—“I wasn’t talking to you and if I'm looking for paranoid global security dogma I can watch CNN.” Instead, she understood: “please tell me more!"

Indra, perhaps uncomfortable by my lack of response, perhaps curious about what this woman was getting at asked her to elaborate. This was just the encouragement the woman was waiting for.

“You know: New York, 9/11, the fact that the United Stateus just killed Bin Laden.” I broke eye contact, hoping that might shut her up. “LA, too. All the major cities.”

At that point I got out of line and walked away in order to spend my last few minutes before my flight in peace. I wasn't sure what it was about this interaction that bothered me--the intrusive way with which this stranger thrust herself into our conversation, her unapologetic belief that she had all the answers--but I did get the feeling that I had already stepped back into the U.S.