Lane 9

It goes like this.

Over a year ago I had my wallet stolen while eating a delicious hummus sandwich at Cosi. The person who stole it spent a whopping $92 on things like Panda Express and headphones at Radio Shack and other stupid stuff. However, I hope they enjoyed that spending spree because it has since been a whirlwind of headaches for me. Long story short, I have no ID. This, strangely, hasn’t really been a problem. But it didn’t occur to me until about a week before my trip to Vegas that I was gonna need one to get on an airplane. Thus began a little adventure I like to call BROOKIE AND THE TSA. Enjoy.

So I called TSA and told them my situation. They said, "Oh that’s understandable, but you will need to bring every piece of ID you have and arrive early, be prepared for extensive security checks." OoooOOoooOOoh!


PART ONE
Wherein I travel from Chicago to Las Vegas and am barely noticed.
So I get to O’Hare and I head up to the check in agent and I tell her I have no ID but that I called TSA and they said it was fine. She nods and glances at the photocopy of my birth certificate and says, "Well as long as you called TSA that’s no problem." Badda boom badda bing, boarding pass.

I get up to security and the girl who is checking ID’s asks for mine. I prepare to show her all my documents and say "It was stol-" and before I’m done she says, "That’s ok, go ahead." I’m headed into security. As I am putting my belongings into the bins a TSA employee accidentally RAMS my finger between two sliding bins and it hurts like a mother. She is really apologetic and hands me all my stuff and ushers me through security. I am released into the general airport, without really having had any of my stuff looked at and with my hand covered in blood. I am a little shocked by all of it.

I go to a Hudson News and ask if they sell band-aids. The lazy girl at the counter points to the band-aids and grunts. God forbid she help me even though I’m BLEEDING all over her counter. I buy the little pack of band-aids for three hundred dollars and decide to go to Corner Bakery for some water and a banana. When I go to pay I notice that they have a pack of band-aids sitting on the counter. That’s kinda gross. Later I realize they were actually my band-aids that had fallen out of my purse when I went to pay and no one told me. I get to my gate and sit there an hour until I finally realize my gate has been changed without any warning or announcement. I get on the plane and am in the middle between sleepy-grumpy who insists on taking the entire arm rest AND slamming the window shade shut right before take off and Captain Fidgets who is pretending to read The Audacity of Hope but never actually turns a page. Instead his main goal is to drive me insane with his constant up and down and fidgets. We arrive late. Thanks O’Hare.


PART TWO
Wherein I Travel from Las Vegas to Chicago and am Nearly Arrested
When I arrive at the Las Vegas airport things are quite different. First off, everyone there is a mean asshole. Seriously, they aren’t messing around. I go to check my bag and explain the missing ID thing to the agent who looks at me, let’s say, dubiously. She says, "Uh huh, well go ahead upstairs and FACE THE LAW, this isn’t up to me." Ha! I loved it so much. As I’m walking away she bellows, "LANE 9!" and off I go. When I reach security I look for Lane 9 and it is nowhere to be found. So I go to Lane 8 figuring they’ll know better than anyone where Lane 9 is. I explain my situation to the TSA guard who looks over my papers and then attacks my boarding pass with a series of mysterious numbers and circles and stickers that I’m only assuming are airport code for "FRISK HER BOYS!" and tells me I need to go, sigh, to LANE 9. Very politely I muster, "Yes, but where IS lane 9?" and she just points to this lone TSA guard sitting outside a door kinda far away that is subtley and freakily marked LANE 9. I have sort of a Brave New World moment, what’s going to happen to me when I go in that door? I decide to risk it and as I’m walking toward him the female TSA agent yells to the man "Hey! I got one for ya!" and he smiles like a toothy wolf as I approach. What the fuck is about to happen to me?

He covers my boarding pass with more stickers and numbers and then sends me through the door. I walk for what seems like miles in a weird maze around the entire airport and finally end up at a special security checkpoint. This acne faced man child with petite lady fingers and a delicate moustache, not more than 20 years old approaches me and asks, with an accent that reveals he is from some sort of deep mountain range somewhere in America, for my boarding pass. I am questioned. "ID was stolen huh?" he sneers. I’m confused by why this idea seems so absurd to him and almost start laughing. "That seems to be happening a lot lately; it’s getting kind of ODD in my opinion." I waited for him to spit out some chewing tobacco and grab a shotgun and chase me off his porch. I wanted to say, "I live in Chicago, having your wallet stolen is pretty NORMAL in my opinion" but instead I opted for a simple, "Hmm."

I’m put through some sort of machine that blows air on me then sent to a table where every pocket of every bad is searched and swiped. Swiped, oh no. It’s at this moment I remember I was at a gun range the day before and that my purse was likely covered in gun powder. I’m not a shooter or a gun lover by any means, so I had no idea what amount of gun powder was going to show on the swipes. I also remembered at this point that my target was in the pocket of my bag. So, in case they weren’t already worried about me enough, I was going to have gun powder and a shot at target appear. That was going to be a lot more stickers and numbers.

Neither the target nor the powder was noticed. Later I thought about how for all their work going through my bags, they never once patted me down or checked my person for belongings. Nice.

Then I gambled away $10 at the slot machine with no ID for a while and boarded the plane easy peasy.

For all the work we do measuring the amounts of gels and liquids and things we are bringing on to a plane, does it even matter? I mean, I’m really grateful that everything worked out and I was able to go on my trip, but in hindsight, it was sort of ridiculously easy to get on board in Chicago, and just sort of ridiculous in Las Vegas. In fact, each cities security was a reflection of the city, Chicago just sort of sat there and waved me through, Vegas put on a big splashy production...I wonder if the TSA guards in NYC hand you a hot dog at the end?