Post 9/11 was when my life totally changed. DHS was established so that we could have security theater at all the airports and make it tougher for people with Muslim names.

I was “randomly screened” on every flight I took from 2001-13. My wife decided to take my last name, so she gets it now. We didn't get stopped at all when we took our vacation in January, so maybe things have changed.

Initially, TSA tried to claim I was setting off the metal detector. I decided to wear nothing with metal one time. Only metal near me was my fillings. It still went off.

I just began stepping to the side automatically. Once, a TSA agent asked me why I’d stepped aside. I asked him if I was going to be selected. He said, “Well yeah…” I told him to get on with it and stop wasting time.

Shortly after, they dropped that pretense and just began printing “SSSSSSS” on your boarding pass if you were selected.

There was also the time that I saw the machine at work up close. I was flying back from Asia with my mom in 2006. Landed at JFK. We were taken to the back room where DHS interrogated people.

Someone with her name was apparently on a watch list. She’d been unbearable the whole way back. She kept waking me up because my snoring was “embarrassing”. Somewhere in Hour 19 of not sleeping, I told her we were going to have a huge issue if she didn’t let me sleep. Anyways, I’m lounging in the waiting room while she’s getting grilled about her life.

There was an agent who was ridiculously racist. Like there was a dude whose name started with the word “Na”. Agent says “Na learning English was a mistake! You’ll have plenty of time in jail.”

I hope that agent has had a swarm of bees released in his apartment every day since.