I'd tipped the young man once at security, thinking he'd probably leave us there, then tipped him 250% more on the elevator up from the tram to Concourse B. When he finally deposited us at our gate, I joked that I was glad I'd already taken care of his tip, but it left me vulnerable to the ill opinion of people watching now and not seeing me give him anything. "Let's pretend that I'm handing you your tip, okay?" I said. He laughed.
That was my old angst, as old as tipping and being sensitive to adverse cultural opinion if you don't.
My new angst had to do with the prospect of reaching down to remove my shoes. Was someone across the aisle going to jump on me and yell that there was a terrorist on board trying to light the fuse to his shoe bomb? Very slowly and deliberately, I untied and removed first one then the other of my shoes. No one jumped me, no one yelled. So far as I could tell, no one even noticed.
Of course, I'm not Arab and don't look Arab. Maybe that was it. Or was it simply that I'm old and gray, even less like the stereotype of someone who would immolate himself in order to kill a bunch of infidels? Or possibly even more likely, was everyone else tired too and maybe thinking they'd like to take off their own shoes?
Heck, probably no one back at the gate noticed me seeming to hand a tip to the young man who had pushed my wife's wheelchair.
Angsts old and angsts new may both be mostly our own private affair.
