Althouse at the airport — a 10-point list.

1. A slow internet connection is like being stupid, but only if you are stupid enough to keep trying to use the internet when it’s going slow.

2. The internet connection here at McCarran Airport is slow, but I had the wit to open a document in Word and start typing this list, so I am at least that unstupid.

3. I got flagged for a pat-down search and had to wait to enter the air-poof booth until a female patter-downer arrived. I was most concerned about my bag, from which I was separated. My money, my cards, my laptop, my iPhone, my iPad, my keys, my glasses, my boarding passes.

4. I expressed concern and was told “There are more security cameras here than at the White House,” but all that meant to me was that they’d have pictures of the person who swiped my bag.

5. But I had to wait and wait for the female patter. A bulky, slow-moving couple blocked my sightline to my bag, and I considered telling the immense bald-headed TSA agent who’d called for the female that he should just go ahead and pat me down himself, because I’d rather have some strange man feel me up than lose eye contact with my bag of money, devices, and papers.

6. The female whom I’m presumed to prefer arrives and asks me if I have any special sensitivities and what’s the use of saying you’re damned right I do?

7. She says she’ll have to touch my “fancy skirt,” which — what? — is that supposed to relax me or compliment me or amuse me? It sounds like something a criminal would say before roughing you up. She grimly and lightly performed the task.

8. The thought I am never flying again formed at #3, but I resist saying it out loud. How boring and useless the information/threat would be to the security lady.

9. I mellow a bit after it’s over, then get annoyed again as I realize I don’t know what chemicals and radiation and seeing-you-naked technology was inflicted upon me in that booth.

10. Now, I’m at the gate, very early, drinking black coffee and typing a list.