I had to stand spread eagle on the specially designed mat, which is always a fun and flattering position. The lady swiped the handheld metal detector all over me. When she got to my right armpit, it beeped. Then she did my left side and it beeped again when it got to my armpit. I still had no idea what was setting it off (keep in mind that it was very, very early in the morning and I hadn't yet had any coffee). The she swiped it over my chest. It beeped. So she went back and forth over my chest, all the while the thing was beeping loudly. She then outlined each breast with the machine, which went off, but only on the underside. It was the underwire in my bra that was setting it off. So then the TSA lady felt me up (my male coworker was standing nearby, watching all this) and then she determined my breasts to not be a threat to national security. So I was finally released.

Last week I had felt that the good ol' boy plant controller and asst. controller in Kentucky were projecting on me a "young woman" stereotype, which I found offensive. Not so much that it was untrue (it wasn't) but it was awfully presumptive and it just pissed me off that they didn't know the first thing about me and yet they kept making comments about how I don't like sports and I am on a diet. OK, so I don't like sports and, while I am not exactly on a diet per se, I do watch what I eat. I had only met these people on Tuesday and I know that I never made sports hating or diet related comments in their presence.

So having my boobs searched didn't really help my rep, if you know what I mean.

In completely unrelated news, I was elected to the parish council on Sunday. I am still not totally clear what exactly this entails. The council only has 6 members and the term is three years. So I don't know what I'll be doing, but I will be doing it for the next three years.

Shannon left the MDA on Saturday. Before she left, she gave me a bunch of clothes and three purses. I put the black one into immediate rotation as my old purse was at the root of my problem when I had that Godzilla incident in the Japanese grocery store (basically the store was too small, my purse too wide, and the displays too flimsy). Not only that, but I think some guy bumped into me while leaving the baseball game last week and broke his camera on my purse. So, for safety's sake, I needed a new purse and the one she gave me is really wonderful. I also really needed an infusion of non-momlike clothing. Perfect.

With Shannon's leaving came Mrs. W's triumphal return to the MDA. Mrs. W and Shannon have not lived in the same state since college (ok, there was a two month overlap four years ago maybe) and I believe that they crossed paths on the freeway.

OH! Listen to this serendipity-doo-da! Months and months ago, I bought rather expensive tickets to go see David Byrne in concert. My boss had reconfigured our global audit schedule entirely around my attending this concert. But then the plants caused a stink (they seem to think that their scheduled vacation is more important than my attending a concert). So I was then scheduled to be north of Toronto on the day of the concert. I decided not to sell the tickets right away as I knew if I did that the audit schedule would then be changed and I would be ticketless.