When I was a little kid, my parents sent me to a summer camp near a city that was very far away from home -- more than a thousand miles away, in fact. I had an uncle who lived in that faraway city, and he welcomed me when I stepped off the plane. I had a huge plastic Unaccompanied Minor sign hanging around my neck, and a KLM badge that an airline employee had given me because he thought I might like it (even though the flight was not operated by KLM). The flight attendants -- they were still called stewardesses then -- made quite a fuss over me, informing me sagely that I was a big, brave girl for taking such a long trip alone.

When camp was over, my uncle sent me home to my parents. I clearly remember him asking the woman at the gate whether he could come onto the plane with me, just to make sure that I found my seat all right. I remember the two of us walking through the cabin, hunting for my seat. I remember him saying his goodbyes right there, in the aisle, then walking off the plane and back to his home.

I think the reason I remember this so vividly is that I wondered at the time whether my uncle would have been able to steal a free airplane ride by staying on the plane after it took off. I remember feeling a guilty thrill at his vaguely criminal action, and a sense of superiority over the airline employees who could so easily have been taken by him. By us!

Of course, that was the 1970's, and back then, none of us could have imagined the criminal uses to which airplanes could be put. I suppose there were hijackings, which led to numberless predictable cartoons about vacationers redirecting airplanes to sunny locations. But at the time, and with my youth, I couldn't imagine my uncle doing anything worse than getting a free airplane ride.

Was there even security then? Did we pass through a metal detector? Were we wanded? We must have been, but my uncle's presence in the waiting area proves that nobody needed a ticket to approach airplanes in those days. Michael Moore made a similar observation on September 12, 2001, rhyming off all the abhorrent lapses in airline security that he had experienced in recent years. Sending luggage on a plane that preceded him. Keeping his lunch-bag with him rather than putting it through the metal detector. Bringing knives, razors, even a hammer on board. Wandering around on the tarmac unaccompanied after missing a shuttle bus.

Those days are over now; they ended the day before Moore wrote his article. Those of us who fly a lot, especially in the U.S., noticed the changes right away. Suddenly our boarding passes needed to be flashed in every corridor. Photo ID, too. Names are printed on tickets now; you can no longer buy them anonymously to resell later (does anyone else remember listings of plane tickets in the classifieds?). Little old ladies are surprised to have their knitting needles confiscated. There was an insane year or so when nail clippers were snatched out of bags and thrown in the trash; I don't know martial arts or anything, but I do know that even I could do more damage with my fist than with nail clippers. The lists of forbidden items grew longer and longer, accompanied by clear drawings in bright colours. Though some objects were taken off the list, others continue to be added even now: there is a new fashion for confiscating cigarette lighters these days -- of which I've lost a couple in the past year or two.

Thanks to FAA regulations, I was asked every time I flew whether I'd packed my bags myself, and whether my luggage had been in my possession at all times. The underlying assumption that a terrorist might be caught out by these questions was constantly parodied on late-night talk shows. The Onion once recommended that they add the question "Are you a terrorist?" to the list. A couple of years later, they quietly got rid of that regulation and stopped asking those particular questions.

When I moved cross-country three years ago, I brought my cat into the cabin with me. Apologetically, the airport staff asked me to remove him from his cage and walk with him through the metal detector. I was afraid he would bolt, but the sedatives that he had taken that morning worked, and he just looked around him sleepily. I wondered, then, what sort of sick bastard would put a bomb inside a cat. We now live in a world where we have to wonder things like that.

Once in a while, we live through a change that transforms the culture's well-loved clichés into nonsense. I grew up with the the assumption that a romantic comedy's climactic scene would take place in an airport: how many movies have we seen in which the lover runs up to the gate, and even onto the airplane, so that he can say one final word to his beloved before she leaves? Will the children who have grown up since 2001 now find those scenes baffling, or perhaps even terrifying?

We split up as soon as we got into the airport and I went into the men’s economy class changing room. There I undressed and put on a bathrobe, put all my clothes into the transparent bag provided, and put the open end into the heat-sealer. I didn’t have much baggage, but I still took a trolley: the strap of my shoulder-bag is uncomfortable through the thin fabric of the airport bathrobes.

I ran into Nell again on the way to check in. We walked there together then I kissed her good-bye and joined the line for the men’s check-in. I didn’t have to wait too long. The assistant took my ticket and ID and I stepped up to the biometer to have my retinas and fingerprints scanned. Then I threw the bathrobe into the chute, put my clothes-bag and luggage on the conveyor belt, and lay down behind them.

I always feel a little claustrophobic in the x-ray machine (OK, OK, it’s a CT, so I’m old-fashioned, sue me), so I’m glad the gas works quickly. Next thing I knew I was waking up in arrivals.

I know some people think the new security regulations are exaggerated, and that it’s overdoing things to anaesthetise the passengers for the whole flight, but I don’t mind it. In fact, I think it’s an improvement. I really used to hate those cavity searches.