The security line at Dallas-Fort Worth Airport was
ridiculously long, and the TSA officials seemed to be ultra-paranoid, checking
and re-checking toddler’s bottles, tearing apart well-packed quart baggies,
patting down old ladies, and treating everyone in the queue with suspicion. I
was sweating bullets for no other reason than because I was already insanely
late for my plane to Los Angeles.
During the weekend belly dance show I’d performed on in
Grapevine, Texas, I’d been hanging out my new friend Tamra Henna, a fantastic
local belly dancer whom I’d recently dubbed “Tex”. Tex and I had gotten along
like gangbusters, so well that she’d offered to drive me to the airport. Over
lunch at a taco stand, we discussed everything from vintage Egyptian cinema and
our favorite Arabic songs to stage make-up and the craziest, weirdest gigs we’d
both been hired for. Since it seemed like I had plenty of time until my flight,
and we were both hopelessly addicted to glitter in general and belly dance
costumes in particular, we mutually made the executive decision to stop at
Little Egypt Imports.
“You will not believe
this place!” Tex promised, as she barreled down the highway,
” You’re totally gonna lose
it when you see all the stuff they have!”
She suddenly swerved her car
into a driveway and parked in front of a huge building with rusted corrugated
metal siding.
“Here we are!” she exclaimed
triumphantly, while I wondered what in the hell this giant airplane hangar
could possibly have to do with belly dancing.
As we stepped through the
door, I realized that the entire place was Little Egypt Imports. It was as though the entire Valley of
the Kings had been teleported into this colossal Quonset hut and then dropped
directly onto the Texas heartland. One room was full of gleaming, enormous
pieces of heavy, carved wooden furniture decorated with hieroglyphics and
cartouches, gaily painted in a rainbow of colors, strewn hand-woven, tasseled
brocade pillows. There were seven foot tall statues depicting Isis and Osirus,
Horus, Hathor, Queen Hatshepsut and Bast; gold-leaf busts of Nefertiti, blue
ceramic scarab and hippotamus paper weights, and an over-sized reproduction of
King Tut’s sarcophagus, which, when opened, revealed an interior decorated as
sumptuously as it’s outside shell. I was flabbergasted…I never even knew stuff
like this existed outside of an actual museum!
Breathless with excitement, I
tore over to the rooms that featured the belly dance costumes, and promptly
immersed myself in the endless racks of Swarovsky crystal-embellished goodies.
Tex and I each tried on countless costumes, sighing over the Egyptian finery,
longingly fingering the hand-beaded details. In our frenzied process, we
promptly lost our street clothes amidst knee-high piles of glittering chiffon
hip-scarves, their coins jingling merrily as we literally trudged through them,
looking for one of my shoes.
Finally done
with the costumes, we eagerly asked about Isis Wings.
Though now a belly dance
staple, Isis Wings are glamorous, huge, pleated metallic chiffon wings with
sticks on the ends to increase their span were hard to come by back in those
days. At the beginning of the New
Millennium- practically no dancers
had them unless they’d been custom made…but Little Egypt had scads of them, in every hue.
Seizing the opportunity,
standing at the counter still minus my missing shoe, I negotiated a great price
and selected a beautiful gold lame’ set of wings for myself. They were packed
up for me in a darling little custom carrying case, which resembled a long,
blue vinyl tube with handles. Suddenly snapping back into reality and realizing
what time it was, Tex and I made a mad dash for the car and then she drove like
Nascar champion to DFW airport.
Since I had only brought a
small suitcase to the belly dance event, I decided to check my bag and carry my
coveted, fragile Isis Wings into
the plane’s cabin with me, rather than cramming them in along with my costumes.
Tex reassured me that I was making the right decision- the wings were simply
too rare and delicate to relegate to a checked bag! We quickly said our good byes at the loading zone
curb and I made a mad dash for my gate after checking my bag.
So there I was in the TSA
security line, tenderly cradling my newly purchased Isis wings, stressing about
whether I’d actually be let onto the plane, which was scheduled to depart in about
twenty minutes. The line was moving at a snail’s pace, and I was still not
through security.
Finally, it was my turn. I lovingly slid my wings safely into a
plastic bin and sent them on their way down the conveyor belt into the X-Ray
machine. A seasoned traveler, I had removed any accessories that might have set
off the metal detector and passed through easily.
But the moment I thought I was free and clear, an obese
female TSA agent began carelessly waving around my Isis wing carrying case,
screaming in a nasal Plains twang that could only be described as The Trailer
Trash Accent, yelling:
“WHO DIS BELONG TO?”
As I stepped up to claim my precious package, she demanded
an explanation as to what, exactly, it was. I realized immediately that I’d be
much better off not mentioning anything about belly dancing, assuming she’d somehow equate an Egyptian dance
accessory with Arab Terrorists. As the woman gave me the stink eye, looking at
me with a mixture of contempt and distrust, I noticed the perspiration rings
under her tightly fitting uniform…apparently she took her job very
seriously. I also saw that she had
an inordinate amount of dandruff, not to mention an IQ that was probably just
barely in the double digits.
She repeated her question, blowing breath that reeked of Corn
Nuts directly into my face,
“WHAT IS DIS?”
Keeping an even, cheerful
tone, I said as nonchalantly as possible,
“Oh, I’m an actress from Los Angeles, and those are just… a set of big
butterfly wings, I use them in a play,
they’re part of a stage
costume.”
“WELL IT HAS RODS IN IT!” she
huffed, “WHY THEM RODS IN THAAAYR?”
Beginning to seriously panic,
with the seconds ticking away til my flight departed, I thought fast. What I
needed was damage control-
otherwise I was going to be spending the night on the floor in the airport!
“Why those aren’t rods,” I
said as sweetly as I could muster,
“Those are just like…little,tiny, skinny balsa-wood sticks…
you know, like for a paper airplane?
Just little… Popsicle sticks!
Those aren’t rods… They’re just pieces of craft-wood, light as a feather!”
My voice trailed away as she regarded me sternly, as though I
was a seasoned Plutonium smuggler, or some crazy criminal who just happened to
be plotting a skyjacking with a set of newly purchased Isis Wings.
“WHY DIN’ YOU CHECK THIS?”
she snarled, as though I was trying to bring an automatic weapon on board with
me.
Breath, I kept repeating to myself… just breathe…. you can do this.
“Well, ma’am, it’s just a
very delicate stage costume,” I said quite earnestly, “I was afraid to check
them, because I thought they’d get ruined.”
“AHMONNA HAFTA CALL A SUPERVISOR!” she bellowed, and
immediately made an announcement on the loudspeaker.
More time went by as we both
waited for the supervisor to show up. Finally, I saw him coming. A
dyed-in-the-wool Good Ole Boy, he
ambled up to the security line, his TSA uniform augmented with cowboy boots, a
straw cowboy hat, and a fancy silver rodeo belt buckle. He was rolling a wooden
toothpick around in his mouth.
“JES’ WHASS GOIN’ ON AROUN’
HYAAAR?” he asked, hooking his thumbs into the rodeo belt, cocking his head to
the side as he sized me up.
Immediately, I knew I had to
play The Belly Dance Card. To
someone like him, a true redneck, the mere words “belly dance” would probably get him all warm and fuzzy…or hot ‘n’ bothered as the case may be… probably bringing to mind fond
memories of wet T-shirt contests and bachelor-party pole dances. Though usually
annoying, the general public’s misconception of Oriental Dance sometimes does,
indeed, come in handy!
Standing straight up and
thrusting my chest out so he had a direct sigh-line to my cleavage, I said in
what I hoped was a tone of voice that sounded like I was a bona fide Reality
Show Bimbo,
“Hi sir! I’m a belly
dancer!”
He looked me up and down,
through narrow eyes, chewing contemplatively on his toothpick.
“A BELLY DANCUH, HUH?” he
grunted.
“Oh yes I am!” I answered, batting my eyelashes and twirling my
hair flirtatiously.
“WELP, SHE SAID YOU HAD SOME
RODS IN THAAYR, MID IF I TAKE A LOOK?”
“Oh no sir,” I simpered, “Please go right ahead.”
He un-zipped my case, and
began palpating it, before pulling out yards…and yards…and even more yards of
pleated, metallic fabric.
Finally, he narrowed his eyes
and addressed me, scratching under the brim of his cowboy hat.
“WHUD YEW SAYS THIS WAS
AGIN?”
“It’s a stage costume, sir!”
I wiggled a little to drive my point home before throwing a
beaming grin in his direction.
As he fingered the material thoughtfully, suddenly it looked
like a light bulb went off in his head.
“HEY! I KNOW WHAT
THISSY-HYAAR IS!” he smiled,
“THIS IS JES’ LIKE ELVIS,
INNIT IT?”
I didn’t have the foggiest notion of what he meant by that
comment, but eager to please him, and more than eager to maybe actually make
my plane, I nodded enthusiastically.
If The King was something that would get me on my flight, I’d be more than
happy to accept the comparison!
“Yes! Why, yes it is just exactly like Elvis!” I agreed.
“OH,” he grumbled to the female TSA agent,
“SHE AIN’T GONNA DO NUTHIN’ WITH THIS! LET HER BE!”
With that, I grabbed my wings and ran like hell to my gate. I
was of course, the last passenger to board the flight.
Puzzled by the entire thing and mulling the incident over in
my head, it wasn’t til our aircraft was over Phoenix, Arizona that I realized
what that man had thought my wings were: those Super-Hero circle-shaped
capelets that Elvis had worn over his jumpsuits, towards the end of his career,
when he was in his Fat Phase.
Now, years later, any time
I don a pair of Isis Wings before a performance, I breathe a silent prayer of
thanks to The King!