Mike Todd and Elizabeth Taylor in an ad for the TWA “Siesta Sleeper Seats,” 1958

At the airport, in a very long, very slow TSA security line, a friendly woman starts to talk.

“This is bad,” she says. She travels a great deal for work. In Dubai, she tells us, “the bins come off a conveyor belt—you don’t have to do anything.” No! we say, as we remove our shoes.

Yes, she assures us. In Dubai, she says, “the airport toilet seats were heated—and the air-conditioning was so high, it felt good.”

Tell us more, we say, as we wrestle with the stack of plastic bins.

In Dubai, she says, they were in and out of security within five minutes.

At this, we are mute with shock—and besides, a guard is shepherding us into line.

“Everything was covered in gold, I shit you not,” she says. “It was pathetic.”

Sadie Stein is contributing editor of The Paris Review, and the Daily’s correspondent.