T he kiosk spit out my boarding pass as I begin my unintentional journey around the world; and for the first time, I was not eligible for the Transportation Security Administration Pre✓ line.
For the first time in who knows how long, I will have to take off my shoes; remove my bag liquids which somehow finds its way to the deepest crevice of my bag which I did not know existed; and walk through the full-body scanner.
Ugh. “First-world” problem; but ugh.
I looked at the line, which seemed to snake for miles. Fortunately, I arrived at the airport early. I was already bummed that this flight offered the opportunity to volunteer for a “bump”; but because I am catching a different flight on a different airline as part of a different itinerary, I could not chance it, as my trip would have been ruined from the start.
I arrived at the entrance point to the line when an agent of the Transportation Security Administration waved me into a different line where there was only one person ahead of me.
Huh?!? Did I misinterpret him?
My boarding pass and passport were checked as I was greeted with “Have a nice day.” The person from whom you would normally expect “barking” advised everyone in a civil and polite tone to not take off shoes and not remove anything from our bags — and passengers were being passed through a traditional scanner rather than the full-body scanner.
A woman asked an agent of the Transportation Security Administration if there was some way she could be in the Pre✓ line instead of this one. The response was that this line was “just like Pre✓.”
Was this a Pre✓ line without the Pre✓?
I had no idea — but who cared? Not I.
Other than the stylish woman who kept removing jewelry one at a time because the scanner kept alerting of metallic objects, the passage through the airport security checkpoint was smooth — and the agents of the Transportation Security Administration could not have been more pleasant and civil.
The airplane is at the gate. The weather is partly cloudy, yet the sun is shining.
This trip is off to a good start…
