Germs at the Capitol

I have two knee replacements which contain titanium and plastic. The state Capitol entrances and the one I go through have metal detectors. I set them off each time I go through the detector. The TSA vigilantes never fail to vocally brace me with either a "Go back SIR!" or "Move over their Sir!" so that the Highway Patrolman who has the duty for the day can wand me. Sometimes they are polite, sometimes they treat me like the inmates that come to the Capitol building to haul trash and clean the toilets and move chairs and tables in or out of the Rotunda floors.

I made a mistake early on when I remarked to one of the women TSA staffers that "It must be the Viagra." Such a smartass, sexual comment put me in the class between potential terrorist and inmate cleaning man for about a year. Much to the joy of my fellow lobbists who got a kick out of the "rousting" I got just about every time I failed to "Step back Sir!" in a proper manner.

Those of you who come to the Capitol from time to time have the opportunity to observe the many celebrations, displays, vistors, from wigglies to oldsters, that come to the Capitol each day, set up the displays, wander about, maybe observe government in action, and get their picture taken with their Representative or Senator and the go home.

Most of these celebrations and displays and visits include food stuff. Cookies, veggies and dips, barbeque, peanut butter, all convieniently laid out on tables in the rotunda where the public is free to touch, cough on, sneeze on and fondle, then shake hands and pass germs from Altus to Afton, Idabel to Hooker and Durant to Ponca City and all points in between. The little kids are especially cute and potent because they can move faster, touch more surfaces and cough and sneeze, and in reality carry more germs, than the elderly.

Once they have deposited their germs, transmitted their germs and picked up the germs of others, they get back on their buses and into their cars and go home where they can then transmit and deposit their new germs into their homes and home towns and schools, quite possibly leaving a good batch of germs in the buses to be transmitted some more when they go to the basketball game the next day.

It is not co-incidetal that all of this takes place during the flu season either.

Now, the law enforcement folks and TSA have been trained and believe that terrorists wear turbans, explosive vests and have crazy eyes and carry other stuff in their baggy pants (thats why they wand you).

One day I asked "Do you ever wand the cookies or the veggies or the barbeque or the peanut butter?"

Well heck, You would have thought that I was the dumbest Okie around the way they looked at me. Meanwhile a group of wigglies got off the bus and came through the electonic gates. They were from Guymon, where pigs are slaughtered and hoof and mouth could be in the cookies and peanut butter, heading upstairs to meld with the kids from Idabel where chickens are slaughtered and evian flu could be in the vegies and peanuts.