Bag It!

Would somebody please tell the annoying security checkers at the MRT entrances that I’m not a New Year’s Eve bomber! Although nobody in Bangkok knows, or claims to know, who planted the bombs that killed three and wounded 38 on December 31st, I can say definitively that it wasn’t me, an aging style-conscious western woman with no science skills.

On January 27th, the 19 Thai suspects picked up shortly after the attacks were cleared for lack of evidence. And after a couple more months of pseudo-serious checks at hotels and ad hoc public spaces, the bomb brouhaha pretty much died down. Like so many important issues—cracks in the new airport runways, Thaksin Shinawatra’s multitudinous malfeasances, the current coup makers’ gross ineptitudes—the bombings got relegated to wherever intractable Thai problems go to die…or be ignored.

So why are the folks at the Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand still “inspecting” their passengers’ handbags and backpacks? Assuming I even wanted to carry a bomb on the subway, how could I ever squeeze one into my thin A4-sized reticule? As it is there’s barely enough space for a wallet, PDA, scarf, makeup, cardholder, notebook, pen and the latest New Yorker.

And what if, hypothetically of course, I’d actually secreted some miniature explosive (if such a device exists) within the bowels of my black bag. Not a single so-called “guard” has ever peered inside for more than a millisecond before pronouncing me Bombless in Bangkok and sending me on my way down the escalator. The smiling and saluting component of their job description takes up way more time than security checking aspects.

Oh well, now that TRT has been disbanded I’m confident the answers to all life’s mysteries will be forthcoming.