Recently, I was returning to Los Angeles from New York City on a major airline. I don't want to give the name of the airlines, but I'll just give you a hint. Any American could fly on this airline.

When I arrived at JFK, I checked my suitcase at the curb with the skycap. At JFK, they get upset if you step up to the counter and get too close to the skycaps doing their job. There is a rope and pedestal showing you the boundaries and you are only allowed to proceed to the podium when invited.

After presenting my driver's license and e-ticket letter, my luggage was weighed and tagged; I was invited up to the podium.The heavy-set skycap motioned me to step inside the roped area, where he handed me my luggage tag, gave me a boarding pass and told me which gate I was assigned, so off I went.

I just about put my driver's license away when I realized I needed to keep it out for the next security checkpoint before proceeding to my gate. At the beginning of the security line, a woman security agent checked my boarding pass and my driver's license.

I am sure she was checking to make sure no one would get through without a boarding pass. I proceeded on through the maze of ropes and posts set up to make us all feel that we were in some kind of amusement park and this was just another theme park ride.

Again, I was going to put my driver's license away when I realized I needed to show it at the end of this line just prior to going through the metal detector. I presented my driver's license and boarding pass to a security agent who took a look at my photo and made a circle in the center of the boarding pass. I thought that might be some sort of top-secret code.

Stepping up to the conveyor belt I placed my carryon baggage and began to practically get undressed. Because of one crazed man who tried to get on to an airplane with some sort of explosive devicehiddenin his shoes, everyone who flies the friendly skies now-a-days has to take off their shoes amidst strangers in line, share foot odors, and the possiblity of embarrassment of having a sock with a hole or two in it.

Has anyone ever thought of the chances of catching athlete's foot? And if so, shouldn't it technically be named airlines foot? Just think of the embarrassing moments we would all have to go through if some terrorist tries to hide an explosive in his skivvies!

I took off my watch, my belt, and my pants began to sink down my hips. Everything gets dumped into a couple of large plastic tubs. One with my shoes, my wallet, my keys, my cell phone a handful of coins, a pen or two, some hard candies and a fair amount of pocket lint. I took out my laptop computer and placed it separately in another tub, took off my sports jacket all the while being careful to keep the boarding pass in hand and keep my pants from sliding down too far down my butt. I wouldn't want to lose my dignity.

After passing the medal detector test, I then began to stuff everything back into my pockets, trying to remember where everything came from. Was that pen in my jacket pocket or my right pant pocket?

It's amazing how fast one can put your things away while simultaneously slipping your feet into your shoes, putting your jacket back on, keeping your pants on, all while walking along with your tubs of personal belongings rolling along on the conveyor belt and making sure no one walks off with your laptop, wallet or boarding pass.

Walking off in a clammy sweat from this incredible invasion of privacy I noticed the latest apparatus for warding off terrorism. I caught a glimpse at the new full bodyscanner as some poor traveler is x-rayed from head to toe projecting your naked image on full display if you were one of the lucky passengers selected at random to be fully humiliated.

I was nearly two hours early for my flight. So I leisurely headed off to my gate. I don't think many travelers have rarely been so lucky in their journeys to be so privileged to get gate number one or two. In my life of flying, I think that happened to me once.

My boarding pass read, "Gate 41."When I got there, there were plenty of seats in the waiting area.I was early.Just as I got comfortable and about to read the newspaper, I thought I should check and make sure I am at the right place. I took out my boarding pass and noticed it read, "final boarding at 3:15 p.m." My watch read 3:45 p.m. How could that be?

My flight was scheduled to leave at 5 p.m. I looked closer at my boarding pass to see the destination was Tampa, Fla. I am going to Los Angeles. For a split second, I toyed with the possibility of taking a trip to Tampa until I realized the flight to Florida left the gate 15minutes ago.

I looked once again at the boarding pass to see that it was someone named George Worthington.

How could this happen?Three times I showed my driver's license with this boarding pass, once at curbside check-in (where the mistake originated), a second security guard at the beginning of the security line, and a third security guard just before the metal detector.

What were these people looking at? Why do we even bother to do all of this disrobing and strobing, wanding and scanning if security is asleep at the wheel? I am often dumbfounded that I don't get stopped more often at these checkpoints due to the photo I have on my license.

The photo is nearly 10 years old and was taken when I used to have a hairpiece and a mustache. I now have a fully shaven head and no mustache yet no security guard even comments on my new look.

My photo looks like someone in disguise rather than the person standing in front of them. Usually when I show my identification it is for checkcashing so the person is comparing my signature. So it is feasible that they would overlook my mug for the moment.

But airport security is supposed to look at faces and names.

I had anyone's boarding pass and got clean through security. Granted, if I had a weapon on me it would have been detected at the metal detector. Or would it?When I flew out from Los Angeles to New York and went through the scanners at LAX, I forgot to remove my wristwatch and it didn't set off the detector.

I could have been a known felon who fled the state for whatever reason. I could have been a deadbeat dad fleeing from state attorneys or an escaped convict evading the police. The security agents were certainly not looking at my name to match to some local or national database of characters of that sort.

I brought my boarding pass over to one of the airline attendants within the terminal and told him there had been a major security breach. I pointed out that the boarding pass was not my destination, not my flight, and that it had someone else's name on it.

He quipped,"Well then, who are you?" I gave him my name and he quickly zipped out a new boarding pass with my correct name and flight to Los Angeles, after asking to see my driver's license.

Never saying anything about my funny photo, he quickly absconded the other boarding pass. I headed off to my new departure gate, gate two (now twice in my lifetime). As I sat waiting to board my flight to Los Angeles, I wondered did George Worthington get on his flight to Tampa, Fla., with my name on his boarding pass?

At the circus, we see lions or tigers jumping through hoops of fire, and when they perform these simple feats the audience swoons and applauds and the animal is rewarded for attempting such a death-defying feat.

When we go through airport security, we are told to jump through several hoops and we get no treat at the other end. We don't have an audience reacting to our little striptease show.

I don't think any of us are looking for a pat on the head or congratulatory gesture for our efforts. Most of the audience is too busy chasing their own belongings down the conveyor belt in the plastic tubs.

But I think we all should be asking the question, "Isn't anybody watching?"