Jim Follis

I'm not certain, but I think we men may be in trouble. It's disguised in our airport screenings, but it's there.

Mark my words: The end is near for the once carefree, high-spirited, kick-up-his-heels male.

Wife Nancys of the world who have attempted to housebreak their "wild mates" and harness them into productive lives have met with only moderate success.

Just as space age exploration gave us peripheral benefits, airport security now is spinning off some technology capable of peering into some of our darkest corners.

Airports have met with some success in screening passengers as they approach the security area of an airport. Technicians are trained to look for signs of nervousness, some clue that might indicate that they are possibly "up to something." Eye movements, blinking, searching eyes and many other signs of nervousness can be tip-offs of trouble ahead.

You can imagine the fatigue and expertise to do this all day long. You talk about a headache.



Just one glitch

But hark, technology comes to the rescue. The computer is able to compare many indicators in a short period of time, giving them one more tool in ferreting out potential troublemakers.

That's the good news.

A man can saunter up to security at the airport as a confident, fun-loving, full-blooded American stud and dribble out the other end a sniveling, whimpering, crawling, heap of damaged Y chromosomes - totally exposed by the full-body scan and red-lighted by the bad-attitude meter.

A cavity search by a porky pine with cold fingers would have been simple compared to the technological humiliation.

I would take a thousand Wife Nancy tongue-lashings over this new airport security system that can dump your mind out on the counter, paw through the contents and inform the computer of your intentions.

If Google gets bucks for selling your profile from

e-mail content, then what could airport security sell the contents of your brain for?



They knew all along

Wife Nancys of the world would pay big bucks for documented proof of what they've suspected long ago.

Just to play this out to its inevitable conclusion, can't you just see the male spouses of the world rolling up one eyelid in the morning to check out what may lie ahead and get greeted by a printout?

"There you go, buddy boy," challenges Wife Nancy.

"You may hope you're going clamming this morning, but we are going to Silverdale, and you're driving the truck because we're buying a new couch."

I didn't know I even wanted to go clamming.

"Yeah, check the printout, line three under probable desires."

Busted. Exposed. Outmaneuvered - overmatched. Game over.



Teens at risk

I'm getting a headache as I write. What will happen to teenagers? The whole category of teenagers may disappear.

The machine says here that you're thinking of ask-ing me to borrow the car to get to work but you're really planning to pick up your buds for a trip to the beach.

There will be some good things.

Safe flying might be nice. And getting an advance warning that the man about to ask for your hand in matrimony really is more interested in your Porsche will be good.

Flushing out con artists, embezzlers, identity thieves and the like will make the world safer; but the new result also will entangle the innocent male who once roamed the world with reckless and virulent abandon.

I ask you, Wife Nancys of the world - oh, never mind. Your machine will tell you what I'm about to ask but I don't need a machine to guess your response.



Jim Follis is a retired school administrator, has published two books and currently writes three newspaper columns. Eating, drinking and making merry are his professed hobbies. Traveling, trekking and observing people follow not far behind.