Our New Short Leash

Lanyards are really coming up in the world.

All the powerful people these days are wearing them. You know: the airport security guard who gets to search your luggage in surgical gloves. The beefy guys at the foot of a concert stage, monitoring the mosh pit. The anesthetist who checks one last time that it’s your right wrist they’re operating on, before putting you under.

Their badges of authority are swinging from lanyards, my friend.

It was easy to overlook some of these folks in the old days, before we took security so seriously. But airport guards are the government’s employees now, not Andy Frain’s. They can make you take off your shoes and open your bags, just by asking. They can all demand your photo ID, one checkpoint after the other. They can scan your belly.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the ballooning Office of Homeland Security will mean more guards in more places and more IDs on lanyards. This whole new class of workers is evolving as we go about our business, occasionally shelling out a photo ID. We may even eventually refer to whole groups of people as Blue Collar, White Collar, and Lanyard.

Talk about access. The right credentials at the end of your string not only open all the doors — they let you boss other people around. So forget Blackberries. The lanyard is the next great power accessory.

That’s a mighty big step up from summer camp. I heard a guy on the radio the other day, reading a poem he wrote about weaving a lanyard for his mom at camp: “You gave me life, you gave me milk from your breast, and I, in return, give you … a lanyard.” The audience kept laughing in that knowing, middle-aged way. (I tried to find the actual poem on Minnesota Public Radio’s Web site, but I could only find six lanyard jokes from A Prairie Home Companion. So quaint. So yesterday.)

I never went to summer camp, so I’ve never woven a lanyard myself. But it’s clear that the style has come a long way from bulky plastic string that won’t stay woven no matter how tightly you tug it. Most lanyards today are more like bright, flat shoelaces — the perfect medium for logos and pet phrases.

The lanyard’s humble beginnings make it an oddly appropriate choice as security blanket for the 21st century. It’s geeky and under-appreciated, but wields the quiet power of reassurance.

You may already have one yourself. After all, a lot of office buildings make employees show ID these days, and a handy lanyard keeps it visible.

Besides, all the best trade shows hand them out with your credentials. That trend evolved as business-casual clothes caught on: A clip-on nametag just isn’t all that reliable if folks don’t have lapels.

That may be where marketers first saw the lanyard’s premiums potential.

Now, I am no pop-culture maven (just ask my colleagues, who think I’m a hick) and certainly no arbiter of fashion, but even I can see that lanyards are, well, cool. Teens like them. Little lanyard keychains spill out of jeans pockets all through that hotbed of trends, the Mall of America. They’re embroidered with team names, fave brands, WWJD?, What Would Scooby Doo? — the only difference is, teens won’t wear lanyards around their necks.

Unless, of course, they’re pulling a shift at the airport.