Doing To Yourself

Not to go into details, but apparently my teeth are very weird. My adult teeth are over-well-anchored, and apparently so were my baby teeth.

What does that have to do with anything? It means that losing my baby teeth was a series of painful experiences, probably more so than they are for the average kid. (No, I don’t know this for sure, but I know my pain threshold is higher than normal and that I dreaded pulling a shaky tooth out.)

My parents tried all the usual stuff, including tying the tooth to a door and slamming the door, or having an adult pull it off for me. (I’ve heard of people taking kids to the dentist for this now, but it was unheard of in my day. Also, my kids never needed it.)

My dread of the pain grew to the point I wouldn’t tell anyone when a tooth was loose and once or twice ended up with the new tooth wildly out of place (which was fixed later.)

Finally I figured out a way to deal with it. I would pull my own tooth. It still hurt like living fire, but the fact that I was in control seemed to make all the difference.

I have since found this is true for me for all unpleasant or painful experiences. I pull my own bandages, I remove my own splinters and I edit myself more harshly than any editor can.

I think this is the only thing that explains how I feel about the current TSA shenanigans. I am not someone overly afflicted with body modesty. Right now I feel embarrassed about being seen naked, but I feel embarrassed about being seen clothed, too – being about fifty pounds overweight. In fact, con pictures and family pictures are most notable by how much I manage to avoid the cameras.

However, this is consciousness of my weight, and not modesty. I never UNDERSTOOD modesty. One of nature’s nudists, I guess, mostly I cover myself so as not to embarrass other people.

But the idea of the TSA using the peekaboo scanner brings up a “h*ll no” reaction and the idea of being felt up… Well, that is a genuine phobia. If you’re my friend you know I’m kind of a touchy person – I pat arms, I squeeze shoulders and I hug. BUT if you’re a relatively recent friend, you also know it took time and I need to be familiar with someone before I touch them in casual contact. I HATE being touched by strangers – yes, it does make doctor’s visits very fun.

So, being me, I intend to lose at least forty pounds before I fly again, and then wear an easy-off dress atop a micro bikini (if I can find one in stars and stripes, so much the better.) I will then remove the dress, put it in the scanner, and walk through in bikini.

It’s quite probable they’ll arrest me as they did guy in underwear. If they do, the fur will fly. But I intend to have a bikini small enough they can’t imagine I’m concealing anything. And then, I’ll still have to reveal all to fly, but I – not them – will be in control.