Just some free time

I understand that if I were to rant about every single instance of nonsensical stupidity in this blog, I would: (a) never leave the house, and (b) create a blog so enormous that the entire blogger server would crash. So to save myself from the dangers of hermitude and the world from bloglessness, I only rant about one out of every billion instances of nonsensical stupidity. The following rant is of just one such instance.

I am in the airport terminal, retrieving my ticket and checking in my luggage. I dutifully show them my driver's license at which point they nod and usher my bag onto the appropriate conveyor belt. I then wait in one of three lines for the security checkpoint, where they scan one's carry-on luggage and one walks through that door-frame-like scanner. I naturally choose the slowest line.

When the security personnel asks for my ID, I again produce my driver's license. She studies it for five minutes. Then she asks me if I have any other form of picture ID. I open my wallet uselessly, pretend to look for the nonexistent form of additional ID, and say "no."

"Well," she says in her sagely, authoritative voice, "your driver's license expired on December 12, and it's December 16. You need to go through extra security clearance."

I look at her. "Right," I say nodding, "naturally, the moment my license expired, I magically transformed into someone other than Yellow Gal. Even though my license bears my name and a picture that looks exactly like me, it's possible that I am no longer me because four days ago, my license expired."

She looks at me and blinks, clearly not getting it.

"And if I were a terrorist, of course I would choose to forge an expired driver's license because I want to draw attention to myself. You know, Ms. Airport Security Personnel--you're a fucking genius. You should work for the FBI." At that point, her head explodes with overwhelming logic and I frolic in her demise.

Of course, none of this happens.

Instead, I am nudged to a special security line where I am molested with a wand and a latex gloved hand, and where I endure the public humiliation that inevitably accompanies having to take off one's shoes and realizing one decided to wear the sock with the huge gaping hole over the unpedicured left big toe.

I love nonsensical stupidity. Without it, what would we do with all our free time in airports?