Editor's note: This piece originally appeared on Orange Source, and is reprinted with the author's permission.
We strutted into the airport with our clashing neon-orange and burgundy, feather-lined, 100-percent-pure
polyester leisure suits, the ones that made us look "Shaft" extras, except it was 1998 and we were on our way to
visit a friend in North Carolina.
After we picked up our boarding passes at the Rochester "International" Airport, we headed to the terminal. Of
course, even in Rochester you have to pass through. Since we were in leisure suits, we were immediately labeled
as "questionable" passengers -- or at least that was what we figured when we were pulled aside at the baggage
checking point and harassed for nearly an hour. Needless to say, none of us were happy with the security officers
when we missed our flight. So Pat thought up a plan for some sweet revenge: the Rochester International Airport
security officers were "goin' down!"
Our uncanny, torrid minds thought of stupid pranks, but none really fit into the category of "boisterously
entertaining." Repeating "Hi, Jack!" over and over again in front of the officers was out of the question. We
wanted something we could relive during a drunken stupor on some boring Saturday night.
We filed back in line at the security checkpoint. This time dressed in our normal clothes for fear of being
arrested by E!'s Fashion Police for outdated tackiness. We tried not to laugh as Pat kept sarcastically asking
"Hey! Do you want the rest of these fries?" while waving a dank, unsavory McDonald's bag.
When our time came, we put our carry-ons and our McDonald's bag through the X-ray machine, and casually
sauntered through the metal detector with no problems -- except for the occasional laughing tantrum. We overheard some
little boy asking his mother why we were laughing so hard, and she responded, "Oh, nothing. I think they might be
on drugs, Honey. Remember, don't do that -- ever!"
Suddenly the officer checking the bags on the machine yelled, "Hey Dave, check this one!" The officer pointed
toa the slightly warm McDonald's bag emerging from the X-ray machine. Dave, a little careless and distracted as he
gazed around the terminal, stuck his hand into the biggest and most powerful odor-wrenching by-product my
graceful digestive system had ever accomplished. His hand emerged from the bag looking like Augustus Gloop squeezing out
of the chocolate river in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.
"Ah, shit!" he yelled as he pulled his hand out of the bag. I had fooled him with my excrete design skills,
shaping the dookie like a cross between a grenade and a 9-millimeter gat. (By the way, my exhibit featuring other
works of excrement is showing at the Museum of Modern Art between Jan. 12 and Feb. 8.)
The next three hours were kind of a blur to me, mostly from the tears of laughter in my eyes, as I sat in the
security officers' temporary restraining outpost. It was kind of like a prison cell, only it was loud and no
cellmates checked out my ass. Security was now trying to decide not so much if we were pugnacious
"Islamic-trained Jihad fighters dressed in pimp leisure suits" but whether we were "mentally competent" to fly on
a plane. In the meantime, we missed our second flight.
Finally, after a slightly embarrassing speech in front of our parents about disrespecting aviation security by
crapping in fast food bags, we were released. Without hesitation, we boarded the next flight to North Carolina.
Needless to say, we never look at flying or McDonald's bags the same way.
-- Shaun