Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee

Taking off your shoes and pulling out your laptop at airport security may leave you feeling discombobulated.

The Mitchell International Airport staff has set up some chairs and a sign just past one of the security checkpoints to help you out.

They've labeled it the "recombobulation area."

Yes, it's a joke. At airport security.

The sign has been hanging at the Concourse C security checkpoint for about a month. Some passengers get it immediately. Some take a few steps, then laugh. Others look up and say, "Huh?"

"See? You're getting recombobulated right now," Melissa Fullmore said Tuesday morning to another traveler who was putting on his belt.

It took Fullmore, who was traveling home to Tallahassee, Fla., a minute to pick up on the joke. But she said airport security could use more levity.

"It's a stressful time," she noted. "You've got to throw out your soda."

A few passengers have written odes to the sign on their Weblogs. One question they've raised: Has the airport staff coined a new word?

"It's more in a pop culture dictionary than it is in an older version of Webster's," said airport spokeswoman Pat Rowe. "I get an occasional e-mail from someone either saying 'huh' or saying 'thanks for the laugh.' "

Airport Director C. Barry Bateman thought the sign would be funny, so airport workers crafted it in their maintenance shop, Rowe said. "We work really hard here, but it's also important to have some fun."

Max Wescoe of San Diego laughed when he saw the sign. It was a moment worthy of snapping a picture on his cell phone.

"I've seen plenty of discombobulation areas," he said, talking both about airport travel and life.

He now knows the one place he can come to do something about it.

"I thought they put that up just for me," he said.