THE TSA
Now, understand, that even when I am in a bad mood I am still one of the most cheerful men you're ever likely to meet. That goes triple
if you work in a terribly unsatisfying job like checking boarding passes and identification when you just know that bitch at the top of
the stairs is going to double-check your work every time. I have worked in crap jobs and I always try to be pleasant. "Good morning," I
smiled at Alisha, handing her my California driver's license and printed-from-the-internet-but-ridiculously-easily-forged (link 1, link
2, link 3, link 4, link 5, link 6, link 7) Southwest boarding pass. She smiled at me, checked that the name on my license matched the
name on my boarding pass, and used a yellow hi-liter to mark the boarding pass with what looked exactly like a one-inch line. (Do I
need to tell you that they sell yellow hi-liters in just about every single store in America?) As she handed "my papers" back to me,
she paused. She looked me in the eyes. She smiled. And then she said, "I can't see your eyes." I raised my hand to my face to remove my
sunglasses and stopped. She wasn't smiling because she was nice. She was smiling because she was suffering from False Authority
Syndrome! The poor child. In the most disarming, rational, peaceful, and kind voice at my command, I said, "You don't need to see my
eyes." "You have to remove your sunglasses, sir." "No, actually, I don't." "I can't let you past here with your sunglasses on." "Yes,
you can." At this point she became obviously frustrated and confused. She looked at me as if I was a freshly-shaved Osama bin Laden in
a sports coat and khakis. She became stern. "Take them off, please." "There's no law that says I can't wear my sunglasses in the
airport. ma'am" "Yes, there is. It's a rule." "It's not a rule." "It is. I can't let you pass." "Yes, you can." She took my boarding
pass and used her yellow hi-liter to turn the line into an X. An X of shame and potential threat. She called to the top-of-the-stairs
officer, "Threat alert!" No, I'm not kidding. Then she let me go up the stairs. At this point I expected to get into an argument with
the top-of-the-stairs woman. I didn't care. I had two hours to kill and I wasn't in the mood to be pushed around by the TSA. But
surprisingly LeVonda did nothing even remotely antagonistic. In fact she let me get into the extra short special security line! This
was a bonus! Instead of standing in the "general" line with the hundreds of non-sunglasses wearing rubes, I got to get into the fast
lane! The fast lane was occupied by a mother and her three children, a very, very tall black man, and a guy that looked like the most
average, generic businessman possible. I didn't feel like any of them could in any way be as much of a threat as I was, but I guess you
can't judge a book by its cover. We merrily zipped through the metal detector and had our carry-on bags x-rayed. The carry-on bag x-ray
is my favorite part of flying and has been since long before 9/11. I haven't gotten on an airplane without a pocket knife since I was a
Boy Scout. If my plane goes down, dammit, I will not be stranded on a desert island without any way of cracking into a coconut! Ever
since 9/11 I've carried at least two, and sometimes three, back-up pocket knives. I've flown about thirty times since then, and only
one time was one of my knives confiscated. For this flight I had two, and they both went undetected. But now a wrinkle! I wasn't
allowed to get my bags. A tremendously grumpy guy grabbed my bag, my laptop, my jacket, and my shoes and gave me the double-ultra
shakedown. He went through every pocket of my briefcase. He went through my jacket. He looked in my shoes. (He did not, I should note,
ask me to remove my sunglasses.) He never smiled. He was a serious TSA. There was a uniformed LAPD officer standing nearby as well, but
he looked like he just enjoyed standing there and flexing and wasn't very interested in all of the potential threats to national
security that were being given the what-for by the TSA. The TSA double-security checker was not about to let me get past him. He knew I
was a bad guy. I had a water bottle. I wasn't hiding it or anything, I just honestly forgot that liquids are dangerous nowadays. He
held it in front of my face like it was a Nazi membership card that he'd found in my blazer. "You know you can't have this, right?" I
almost - almost - said something snarky about how it was cool that he didn't care about my Swiss Army knife or my Leatherman tool.
Instead my reply was, "Oh, yeah, right. Sorry about that." I reached for the water bottle, saying, "I'll just chug that now." You would
have thought I pulled an UZI out of my ass at this point. He literally jumped backwards and told me, "Don't come any closer!" I
laughed. I did. I couldn't help it. It was absurd. I looked at the LAPD officer and said, "Is he serious?" The policeman looked at me
as if he was very sorry and trying to not laugh himself. He walked a little bit closer towards us but said nothing. "Dude. It's water.
I'll drink it right now." "I can't let you do that. You have to throw it away." "What? Why? I'm going to drink it. I'll drink the whole
thing. Right now. Right in front of you." "You can't do that." "Why not?" "It's against the law." "What law?" "You can't drink in the
security area at the airport." Now this is where I got mad. "There is no law that says I can't drink water in the security area of the
airport!" I looked at the cop, "Is there?" The cop said, "I have no jurisdiction where you are. You're not on LA property." This seemed
pretty silly to me. What the hell was he doing there if he wasn't allowed to do anything? But whatever. He was a cool cop and I didn't
have any beef with him. I looked back at the TSA guy and said, "Show me the law." He stared bolts of fire into my skull and said, "I
don't have to show it to you. It's the law." "Uh." Yes, I really did say, "Uh." "There's no law, man," I said. He said - and I swear I
am not making any of this up - "It's an SSI and I am not required to show it to you." "What is an SSI? Are you kidding? This is
America. You can't enforce a law without showing it to me. I never voted on any law about drinking water in the security area of the
airport. There is no such law." I really, really wanted to ask him if SSI stood for Super Secret Information, but I forgot. "I can't
let you drink this water." "Fine. Throw it away. I don't care. It's an unopened bottle of water that I am willing to drink right in
front of you. But whatever." "I can't throw it away. You have to throw it away." I picked up my bags and walked away.
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