Serving the Lord, helping the kids, and spending the last third of my life working my way back to the place where I can hang with the boy.

Saturday, September 24, 2011

Epiphany

I'm going through security in the .Gillette airport. I put my things on the scanner belt then hand the officer my drivers license and boarding pass. As I take off my shoes and belt and send those through the scanner the officer gets all serious and asks "Is this your real ID?".
"Excuse me?"
"This ID. It isn't valid. It isn't you".
"Well, I'm sure it is me" I reply.
"I don't think so he states firmly. Show me the expression on this ID" he demands.

"Let me see my drivers license" I reply.
"No" he responds. "If this is your ID you should show me the same expression. If you see the ID you will know what I'm looking for"

Well, as you can probably guess I am now looking for the candid camera equipment. Finding no film crew I ask "This is a joke, right?"
"No sir, I am absolutely serious" he retorts giving me his best officer in control stare.
"Well...I think we need to talk to your supervisor now" is my reply and just as I say it a lady steps over to officer fake ID and ask him what the problem is.

"This ID doesn't look right. I don't think it is valid and I'm not sure it is even him" he tells his boss.

"Let me see the ID" she requests and he puts my drivers license in her hand.

She looks at the license. She looks at me. She looks back at the license then says to me "I'm sorry Mr Crawford, if you could give me jus"t a second".
She immediately turns to the guy who is saving yet another building from a terrorist attack and says "This is the same guy. Look the shir even looks about the same, the only difference is he is wearing glasses".
"I told him he didn't look the same and asked him to show me the expression on the license but he didn't know to take the glasses off and look at this ID - it doesn't look right" he quickly explains.
Then the epiphany happened. The supervisor pointed at my license. "See here, this is a Texas license, that's why it looks different. And notice that his final destination is Dallas..."

The challenging officer's eyes open wide. "Oh! Texas! That's why it looks different" and with that he waves me through to the plain loading area.

A short time later I'm on the tarmac about to board the airplane. I open my case to get my Kindle and realize I have taken a 20 ounce bottle of diet coke with me to the aircraft.
My ID was a threat but I guess the 20ounces of liquid are OK. I snag the Kindle and shrug, then as an afterthought I carefully shake the dust off my shoes before boarding the flight.