Suck it up: Pat-downs are old hat to wheelchair fliers

I have been following with growing annoyance the whole opt-out issue of pat-downs at airports.

At first I thought I was annoyed because these people thought that they were too important to follow the rules. Like people who don't pick up after their dog or idiots who leave used toilet seat covers on toilets or most pro athletes and members of Congress.

If you don't want to obey the rules, then take a train, a bus, a bike, your legs.

Then it hit me: The real reason I find it all so whiny. I, and others in wheelchairs, have been putting up with pat-downs for at least nine years. My junk has been touched, my legs, back and chest, too.

Now these candy-ass able-bodied people start whining after weeks. And I figure they would also be the ones leading the protests if a bomb got on board a plane.

Pat-downs are nothing. Try having your flight land and you have to wait till everyone else deplanes. Then the plane staff cleans the plane and the pilot leaves, but you are there because the aisle wheelchair, which you need to get off the plane, is not there. And then when it does come, it doesn't really fit between the aisles or in the doorway. And you spend more time sitting in a straightjacket-like aisle chair while it is wriggled back and forth to get to the jetway. Yeah, it sucks. Although it is made bearable by airport personnel who are kind even though they have to put up with your whiny ass.