i want security yeah i'm telling you once say again oh now security and i want it in the end

There's still time to give to the MS WALK! The walk was great. For pictures, see Melissa's blog (linked below), or wait for me to put some up, maybe. Thanks to those who gave!

Back in November, for various tax purposes, I changed my residency from Georgia to Virginia (although now I believe I'm considered a resident of both, actually). Because the 9/11 hijackers had apparently super duper easily piece-of-cakily obtained their driver's licenses from Virginia, the Commonwealth of Virginia requirements for a driver's license now require about twelve forms of photo ID, along with a passport, birth certificate, grocery store card, library card, four utility bills, a letter from your past three employers, and letters from your best friend in kindergarten attesting to the fact that yes, you do in fact live in Virginia and you do not intend to fly any airplanes into any major buildings soon.

And so it took me about eight minutes, from start to finish, to get my Virginia driver's license on one Saturday in November, a day when the DMV opened thirty minutes EARLY, was unbelievably efficient, and forgot to even test my incredibly blind eyesight and didn't put that I needed corrective lenses on my license.

So when Melissa was driving me to the airport in Portland (Maine, not Oregon, which was an amusing bit of confusion with Amber one morning, who is originally from Portland OREGON and couldn't figure out why I was having trouble finding flights) today and commented that perhaps security in the tiny little airport wouldn't be the extreme breeze I expected it to be since the 9/11 hijackers had begun their trips out of that airport, it didn't really phase me. "Huh," I think I might have said.

In fact, nothing occurred to me until I had to show the TSA guard at the 9/11 originating airport Portland (Maine) my 9/11 easily-gotten Virginia driver's license.

Yeah.

I think one of those two items would have been just fine. It's the combination of the two that brought over three guards to inspect the license with the ultraviolet light, the infrared light, the magnifying glass, a larger magnifying glass, a call to a manager, a call to a higher manager, and a halt to all airport screening whilst all Portland (Maine) TSA security guards had to be trained on the spot in the fine art of inspecting a Virginia driver's license.

By this time, all ten people flying out of Portland (Maine) behind me who hadn't yet gone through security were getting really impatient. Yours truly was pulled aside into the "specially roped off private screening area," which is a roped off circle on the other side of the driver's-license-checking-podium with no privacy screens AT ALL, which are required, maybe?, I believe, where all of the n00b guards were taking turns shining an assortment of rainbow lights and differently-sized magnifying glasses upon my license, looking up at me, looking down at my license, looking up at me, down at my license, up at me, license, me, license, me, license, me...Nobody yet had said a word to me except to ask me to "step into the circle."

After about ten minutes, I was handed back my license and allowed to proceed on my way.

Without having to put my bags or myself through x-ray.

Portland (Maine) TSA: They're all about the security.