Take the Scissors Away

I should have seen it coming, in fact, you could say its my fault. All I had to do was nothing. Simply take my boarding pass and move along. But who am I kidding her words and the vagarious nature of her comments rooted me in place. I chased her comment right to the rabbit hole and then plumbed its depths for all it was worth.

Last Friday I step up, place my boarding pass on the scanner with one hand and with the other I swiftly hand the TSA agent my drivers license. Now for those of you who travel you are aware of the scanners beeping three times for those enrolled in Pre-Check and once for those not enrolled. Never mind my boarding pass says Pre-Check because its the all important three beeps the agent pays attention to. They treat it a lot like the soup nazi in Seinfield. "No three beeps, no Pre-Check!"

I get one beep and immediately begin pointing out I am indeed in the right line. The agent glances over at the screen and then back to my boarding pass. "Why, yes you are. It says so right there on my screen,"

This is where I should have thanked her and went along my way. But because I am preconditioned like Pavlov's dog to the three beeps I push on. "It's supposed to beep three times. But it only beeped once."

She nods and says "Yeah, they changed it."

Stupidly, I ask "Why?"

"You frequent travelers figured out the beeps." She said.

I felt the tug of the hook as it sank deep in my gullet and the instant and unsatisable need to plumb the depths of this particular rabbit hole.

"That your guess or you know that's the reason?" I ask.

Pausing, she tilted her head back and forth like a lost Stepford wife and replied. "Yeah, pretty sure that's it.?

"Which one?"

"I don't understand." She said vacantly.

And then it hits me, I've found the bottom of this rabbit hole. To plumb it further will only invite further abuse to my conscience. Letting it pass I head to the gate thankful catastrophe has been avoided and terrified this is what separates up from the terrorists.