By Neil Humphreys, Neil's World

I felt like Arnold Schwarzenegger last week and I cannot say I enjoyed the experience.

First, it took several failed attempts and a Google search to spell 'Schwarzenegger'.

And second, I do not particularly want to feel like the California governor.

The esteemed commentator Clive James said it best when he described the muscle man as 'a brown condom full of walnuts'.

Call me a metrosexual but I have never wanted to look like a brown condom full of walnuts.

Nevertheless, I had an Arnie moment at both the Hong Kong and Melbourne airports last week.

Older readers will recall Arnie's classic 1987 movie Predator where he was hunted by an alien lizard with dreadlocks resembling Bob Marley's.

It was a great action movie but I was never entirely sure whether the alien lizard was going to kill Arnie or serenade him with a verse of No Woman, No Cry.

The Predator tracked his prey with heat vision, picking out the luminous red and yellow body shapes in the dense forest.

Thanks to swine flu, I was tracked by the Predator last week.

From airport to airport, security checkpoint to security checkpoint, I kept popping up on a heat-vision monitor, looking tall, gangly and distinctly yellow.

The heat-vision contraptions checked my temperature. I kept checking for Arnie and that guy who played Apollo Creed in the Rocky movies to come and rescue me.

Each heat-vision device was manned by a nurse in a disturbingly tight uniform, complete with matching latex gloves and face mask.

As my family queued to play Who Wants To Be Quarantined, I noticed the heat-vision monitor.

'Look at the screen,' I whispered to my wife. 'The passengers look like they're being chased by the Predator.'

'What predator?' She asked.

'You know the movie Predator. The one with Arnold Schwarzenegger.'

'Was that the one with Danny DeVito?'

'Yeah, that was it. Arnie was chased around by a dwarf.'

'Oh, shut up. It's our turn to go through.'

I have a problem with security checks. It's a physical defect. As my mother once lovingly pointed out, I have a serial killer's face.

There is a shifty, cold-eyed expression of guilt permanently etched on my face.

Whenever I left a FairPrice supermarket without buying anything, I was overcome by an urge to strip at the counter to demonstrate that I had not stolen anything.

I flush when a customs officer stares, perspire when I am stopped at the Causeway for a police check and wet my trousers if airport staff ask to see the contents of my luggage.

There was no chance of passing the heat-vision test in Hong Kong.

Sure enough, I glanced at the screen and noticed the heat gushing through my scalp. It looked like my head was on fire.

The nurse peered into my eyes.

'Excuse me, sir,' she asked slowly. 'Have you had any difficulty passing water?'

'Well, I had a dizzy spell walking across London Bridge once.'

Okay, she never said that. But I have waited years to find the right medical context to use that old joke.

'Excuse me, sir, have you had any feverish symptoms recently?' was what she really said.

'No, I haven't. I just get a bit sweaty in airports. It must be something in the air.'

A look of horror flashed across her face.

'No, there's nothing in the air. Well, there's obviously something in the air but I haven't picked up anything in the air. It's just a figure of speech, you know. There's something in the air.'

I sounded like a broken Phil Collins record.

Eventually satisfied that I had an acceptable body temperature, the nurse ushered me through.

My little girl pointed at my bulky yellow image on the screen and giggled.

She thought she had spotted one of the Bananas in Pyjamas.

Now, no one wishes to make light of the first influenza pandemic in 40 years.

Say the word 'flu' and people reach for chicken soup.

Say any word with the suffix 'demic' and people reach for face masks.

That means common sense is proving rather elusive at the moment.

An airport ground staff member asked me if I had 'recently had a cold or sneezed several times'.

Had I recently sneezed several times?

I make more noise than a steam engine whenever a cat strolls past me.

At the last count, I suffered pollen, dust, heat and cat hair allergies. I sneeze whenever the wind blows.

'Will there be any cats in the cockpit?' I asked.

'I sincerely hope not.'

'Then I won't sneeze on the plane, unless the person sitting beside me has a bag full of freshly cut grass between his legs.'

Thankfully, there was no sneezing on the plane and the journey passed without incident.

I had only one grievance. There were more than 30 new and classic in-flight movies to choose from and not one of them was Predator.

stlife@sph.com.sg

This article was first published in The Straits Times.

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