Simon says: Just let me board please, TSA!

UPDATE: My friend Paul of Toyko, who is not exactly like Andy of Mayberry, struck me with a Clintonian:  “Doesn’t it depend on what you mean by the word “is?” This made me realize that I omitted a word in the first paragraph. Guess which word it was? No you are wrong. No you are wrong too. One more chance. Oh, no you are so wrong that you should be elected to the “So Wrong Hall of Fame.” Actually it is: “not.”

An editor on a freelance assignment told me that she did not permit the use of “is” and “was” in sentences. It was a little quirk, she explained, not using “is” as I remember. You think? But I do think of that as I have amassed my bags to begin packing for a trip.

As I have mentioned before on this blog, I am heading off tomorrow to El Paso. As in, “out in the West Texas town of El lPaso … ” Marty Robbins was certainly ahead of his time. I am sure somewhere on my blog — I’ve been writing this thing for five years now on almost every weekday so I don’t know what all is on here. I have to search like everyone else — I tell the story that as a heartbroken youngster I didn’t get to see Marty Robbins as intended and instead saw some guy dressed up in a suit and cowboy hat named Willie Nelson.

So, I have to pack. And since it’s been more than six months since I’ve flown, I checked the TSA site to see what the prohibited item du jour might be. I didn’t see anything new. I really can’t pack everything until the morning, so I thought I’d just pack what I could. Sometimes I can be pretty organized, even anal. Of course, some people whose lives I have crossed certainly  think of me more as anal than anything, more like an a**hole.

Seriously, I suppose some good hints are listed on TSA’s site. They kind of lose me in their “checkpoint friendly” laptop procedures. It appears some bags are okay in that they present a good image through X-ray of the computer and the laptop does not have to be removed from the bag. But the explanation just isn’t clear enough. Bags in the “trifold,” “butterfly” and “sleeve” styles are okay, but warns the TSA:

Purchasing one of these bags will not guarantee that you can leave your laptop in your bag for screening. If a Transportation Security Officer finds that the bag does not present a clear and distinct image of the laptop separate from the rest of the bag, the laptop must be screened separately.”

I have a sleeve bag for my computer, but I use it as a buffer in what is otherwise a flimsy canvas-style computer bag. It does have a lot of pockets, however, and I am a fool for pockets. Really, I feel the TSA wasting my time on an explanation about bags that might still require the standard screening is not a whole lot of use. Please let me board!

Tomorrow, I will still take out my computer and the battery, unless they tell me not. It’s like a giant, government-sanctioned, game of “Simon Says.”

“Simon says don’t take out your computer. Take out your power cord. Nope. Simon didn’t say take out your power cord … ” And so it goes. Please let me board!