You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The Wand man.
The world is terrorism obsessed.
Checkpoints and metal detectors and security lines.
We live in a See something Say something world where everyone is a suspect.
Sadly, everything changed after 911.
Planes flew into skyscrapers.
Buildings burned.
Good men and women jumped to their deaths.
Foreign threats became pervasive. Domestic lone wolves evolved under the radar.
It’s frightening if you let it be frightening.
Ever since we have pledged that we will not let the terrorists win, it seems like they are winning.
Every time you wait to get through security at the airport, they win a little.
Every time you take off your shoes and your belt and your watch and remove your wallet and open your computer case and dump your change in a bin and stand in an exray machine in your socks; they’ve won a little.
Watch the news and ISIS is beheading kidnapping victims.
It makes you stop and wonder, doesn’t it?
Who are these people? Can they harm me?
Watch the news and a delusional pilot is flying his jet into a mountain killing 150 people because he has a screw loose.
Is he a terrorist or suicidal maniac. Does it matter what we call him?
He stole a little of our freedom too.
If you need to go to court to pay a traffic ticket?
The metal detector is a part of the process.
Every time I have to disrobe or abandon the cadence of my American dream, the GD terrorists have won a little.
It’s a beautiful Sunday as I head into the Bridgestone Arena.
Preds fans in big jerseys are moving slowly through the security checkpoint.
Like rush hour traffic, I can see the line backing up near the door.
What’s the hold up, I wonder.
That’s when I see a phalanx of yellow coated security agents.
They are forming a line across the promenade leading into the building.
They are a thin of defense making sure that nothing evil or impure enters this bastion of hockey.
Like cattle we inch closer.
I watch as women pull their bags from their shoulders and open them up for inspection.
I watch yellow jacketed security agents stare at keys and hair brushes and scrunchies and tampons.
A tampon blowing up a building will be a 1st.
I understand they are looking for guns and C4 and knives.
I get it.
A hockey game is as good a place as any to wreak havoc.
So I get to the yellow jacketed authority figure.
He looks like he’s had a hard day, maybe a hard life.
His hair is dark and slicked back.
He has a Cholo look about him, like a greaser I met once in East L.A. That guy was wearing a fish net to hold back his hair and a wife beater T-shirt.
This guy is wearing a yellow jacket and a bad attitude.
“remove everything from your pockets, ” he orders.
His face is hard. I don’t like his tone.
I pull my cell phone out of my pocket in one hand and my keys out of my pocket in the other.
I feel like that should suffice.
I raise my arms assuming the position of supplication.
He moves close to me.
He stinks of power-hungry authority.
He runs the wand up my torso then steps back and stares at me incredulously.
He waits, pondering me.
Does he think I’m the Boston Marathon bomber?
Does he think I am Al Qaeda?
“What else do you have on you?,” he asks.
I am not sure if it’s the question or the way he asked it.
His voice reeks of one too many NYPD episodes.
Who are you, Andy Sippowitz? I want to quickly retort.
I look at his squinting face. I look at his power-hungry stance. I see him holding the wand at the ready.
I feel my blood boil.
Why?
Maybe just because.
Maybe because he’s an ass. Maybe because my civil liberties are being violated. Maybe because now I’m having to stop my day, and begin accounting for items that might be in my pant’s pocket.
“What’s in your pockets?” he asks again.
His demeanor is muddy indignation.
“I don’t know, buddy. Why don’t you wand me and find out?”
It just comes out of my mouth.
It’s angry and agitated and caustic.
I think he’s shocked.
JUST WAND ME BABY.
It sounds like something Al Davis of the Oakland Raiders would have said and then placed on a banner all around his football stadium.
“Let’s find out what I’m hiding,” I continue.
I raise my arms again. “I’m interested to know what else I got that’s causing you so much consternation. Go ahead and wand me.”
He moves closer and runs the wand up my pant leg near my crotch.
“What’s your wand telling ya now dude?”
He finishes and backs away.
“OK. you are clear.”
I stare at him.
“Oh, I’m good. The wand says everything is good.”
I put my keys back in my front pocket.
“Thanks. I feel safer.”
I walk past the wand man.
In some ways the 30 second interaction wasn’t worth the elevated stress.
But in some ways, to me, it’s more than worth it.
In my America, my time is important. In my America my personal space is my personal space. In my America you better have a GD good reason to shove a wand up my ass and not think I’m gonna bite back.
In my America, the terrorists win when I gotta explain myself to a misguided power-hungry yellow jacketed hotdog chef getting minimum wage.
To some people its 30 seconds. To me every moment has meaning and sometimes that’s the moment that needs to command your attention.
America demands your attention.
Life’s Crazy™