Tuesday's Blood Boiler. . .
Many of you know that I travel by air frequently. And by virtue of that, I am required to jump through the necessary security hoops that were put into place after a handful of goat-humping, Allah-worshiping, perverted miscreants turned aircraft into flying bombs and piloted them into tall buildings. Thanks be to Allah, chicken shit be upon him.
Anyway, in the New and Improved America, the lowly air traveler has to put up with legions of highly-trained and specialized shock troops of the Transportation Security Administration. Or as I like to call them, graduates of the Barney Fife Vocational and Technical School of Certified Cop-A-Feelers.
Now, before I get too far off base with another vulgar and narrow-minded rantation, I will freely admit that stereotyping the whole of TSA is inappropriate and unfair, however, using the small sample of individuals that work at my airport here in Jackson as the control group, I feel I have the right to generalize, lump together and more specifically, talk shit about them.
In case you haven't noticed, it's a real pain in the read-endus as you pass through security. Off with the shoes, remove the laptop, take off your belt. Sir, is that a digital camera? Back up a step or two when the huge guy in front of you wrestles off his ostrich skin Justins and in the process shows his ass crack and associated ass hair that comes with it to the masses. And God forbid you get behind a gum-smacking, brainless, teenaged girl with her Ipod, her three belts, countless bangles and spangles, lace-up high heeled boots, laptop, purse, mini-E-computer, Hello Kitty makeup bag, digital camcorder and giant 59-ounce Diet Mountain Dew Slurpee from the 7-11.
What? Like, I can't like, take my drink on the plane? But like, I just bought it!
*sigh*
Just take a deep breath and a Valium, if you have it.
This past weekend as I was leaving town, the TSA representative at the kiosk where they check identification and boarding passes marked my pass and verified that I was indeed the long-haired hippy with the crazy facial hair in the picture. Just then, she was relieved of her shift at the kiosk and immediately took up a strong, well-formed position at the metal detector. As I passed through, she sternly studied my boarding pass quite thoroughly and gave me the once over with a keen eye before letting me pass.
Um, don't you remember that about 30-seconds ago, you were the one who scribbled these unintelligible marks on my boarding pass to begin with?
Guess not and I must assume this behavior is part of the grueling training regimen at Barney Fife Vo-Tech.
I can see the demographics of these employees clearly. Older folks, who aren't quite to retirement age, making a living wage on the government dime. Or the young college age kids looking for something to fill the pocketbook and pass the time before they move on to the bigger and better in life.
However, some of them are exactly what you see. Lazy, uneducated people looking for an easy job. And what's better than that? Well, an easy job with a badge and a modicum of authority, that's what! Just smart enough to pass the civil service exam with basic reading, writing and mathematical skills. Speaking skills are a different issue and some of them look like then can't comb their hair in the morning without studying a diagram of how to do it first thing each day. Start on the left. . .
I always chuckle inside as I watch my belongings get scanned through the all-seeing eye that is the protonic-disassociating, spectrographic diometer. For you non-tech lackeys out there, the x-ray machine. I giggle with anxiousness as I stare into the blank eyes of the TSA representative and ponder over the great question of how am I sure they're not really playing a hot game of Space Invaders back there instead of looking for bombs?
Who are these people? This is our first line of defense against Jihad-Jamal and his suicidal goat-humping brothers? No wonder I end up in the airport bar drinking Heineken and neat sides of Knob Creek as fast as I can before every flight.
With all of that said, it surprises me not that something like this would happen to a traveler when relinquished into the hands of these finely-tuned and well-aggregated security forces.
