Evenin’ Goofies,
This is your resident best friend, lover, boo thang, and frustrated travel enthusiast who is yet again on another flight to somewhere in the world. Today, it’s my hometown for a family reunion!
But before I get to the family chaos, lemme take a moment to talk about Delta and TSA. Girl, boy, whomever you are… I had a wild ride today.
For starters, I pull up to the airport pretty much right at the exact cutoff time for checking a bag. I know, I know—you hate me, I suck, I’m stupid, we’ve established this. But hey, it’s all good! I’m flying first class on Delta today, baby. Your best friend is about to breeze right through.
Or so I thought.
I roll up to the TSA line, and this man looks at my pass and tells me, deadpan, that I don’t have PreCheck.
Excuse me? Yes sir, I do. Your system is wrong.
Now, Mama Malrix taught me a long time ago two very important rules: never argue with people in power, and never argue with stupid people. I took one look at this man’s face and knew immediately that he had heard every excuse in the book and was entirely uninterested in helping a late traveler. And by now? My plane is actively boarding.
Luckily, JMalrix is an experienced traveler. I marched my happy ass back to the Delta counter to get it fixed, but they couldn’t add it to the pass either. So, I knew what had to be done…
I had to go through regular security.
My friends… my sweet, dear friends… I have not been in the regular TSA line in years. OMG, I hated every single second of it. To make matters worse, they flagged my bag for a manual search. Do you know what the high-risk threat was?
A teddy bear. 🧸
A literal teddy bear. Thank goodness TSA was on the case, folks! I feel so much safer knowing my plushie is out here on a watch list.
In all seriousness, though, allow me to take a quick second to talk about privilege. Standing in that line gave me a heavy dose of reality. I fully acknowledge that I have enormous privilege—including the privilege of being able to afford Global Entry/PreCheck and actually use it. For whatever glitchy reason, I had to go through the regular line today, and while it sucked, it was a healthy reminder that my life doesn’t always have to be that easy.
Also, when you really step back and think about it, paying extra money for the privilege of skipping a security checkpoint is such a ridiculous flex that it almost felt absurd to be annoyed about standing with everybody else.
Oh well! I survived the teddy bear raid, I made the flight, and I’m looking forward to this family reunion. Also, I know, I know—I still owe you like three other travel posts, but I got sick! Give a doofus a break.
Love y’all, stay safe, and until next time… brush your teeth.
From a goofy security line with all my love,
JMalrix
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