Today I embark on an adventure of which I will be writing for the next few days. While it is sure to be fraught with awesomeness, hilarit and not a small amount of booze, it also promises to be filled with nervous laughter and anguish. But only a little. So I begin.
I am sitting in the [still] under construction Portland Airport, using their slow ass Wi-Fi, In order to bring you something that has always bothered me. I got here with enough time to get through security and get on my plane, because usually security stopps me at least twice on my way to the concourse. You see, the hugungous (hugungous is not i my dictionary) crate that I carry my Records in is a diamond-plate Eurolite hardcase. The thing could literally be caught on fire while falling from the top of a house and still keep my records safe. That being said, it also looks suspiciously like something someone would put a bomb in. As such it is usually inspected at the security checkpint (as would be expected), and more often than not by a roving sky cop who has nothing better to do than bug the guy with the big metal cube.
None of this happened this time.
While I am glad that I have a little extra time and didn’t have to worry about being molested by the gigantic female TSA cop/shoe inspector/supposed strip-searcher/massive steroids abuser. In fact, the conveyor belt didn’t even slow down as my flightcase, filled with records (which these young kids probably have never even seen), wires and a box full of needles, all readily visible on the X-ray screen, passed through the machine. Nope, the TSA guys, those charged with protecting my ass from a long drop and a sudden stop, were talking about football. Football.
Ordinarily I am okay with this, even going so far as to join witty banter about Brett Favre’s ancientness or whatever, but in this case I was a little perturbed. In fact, I made a big show about re-organizing the three-hundred miles of wire that I carry around with me when planning to record just to see if they would notice. They didn’t even glance at me. Our tax dollars hard at work.
Anyway, I have to go get on a plane so that I can freak out the lady that is staring at me with a look of sheer terror in her eyes as they continuously flick down to look at the big shiny case that obviously contains TNT or Smallpox or, hell, a chicken with Avian flu.
