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• Friday, July 11, 2008 03:07 AM

  "Take this seriously!"

  "Take this seriously!" bellowed the overweight TSA stormtrooper as I smiled mildly at nothing in particular, my mind far away as she brandished her metal detector at my crotch.

  "I'm sorry, that's not my job," I responded.

  "WHAT DID YOU SAY?!" she bellowed in that way that only the underpaid and over-uniformed do when the charade that maintains their "authority" threatens to come crashing down.

  "I said it isn't my job, taking it seriously. Taking it seriously is YOUR job. My job is simply to stand here and try to forget that this gratuitous waste of my time and my money is happening. My blood pressure. You understand." I delivered all of this in a calm, soft voice that she had to lean closer to hear.

  "You're JOKING!" she said. "Joking is not allowed!"

  "No, sadly, I'm neither joking," I responded, "nor have I threatened you, wasted your time, or otherwise interfered with your duties. I merely smiled." I smiled again.

  "Now, you certainly have it in your power to waste more of my time," I continued, "you can make me miss my flight. You can physically and mentally degrade me further than you already have. But if you do any of that because I smiled at nothing what does that make you? I think that kind of deliberate evil goes a long way beyond doing your job, don't you?"

  She stood silently enraged for several seconds, replaying what I'd said in her mind. Then she nodded, and then jerked her head, indicating that I should leave.

  I left.

  Once upon a time a man suggested that people stop a war by "walking in, singing a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out". He was right, in a way.

  Maybe we can end this madness by smiling.

  —shannonr Read shannonr's other letters
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