My girlfriend and I arrived at the Miami International Airport a little late on Sunday, the day of our departure from 2009's Winter Music Conference.  We had opted for a last minute swim before heading out, not too eager to return to the dreariness of the Northeast and all the attendant existential responsibilities of the artistic life of leisure.  So we arrived in a rush, running up to the security line, which was backed up beyond belief.  We ducked into the line for families and people with disabilities, which was nearly empty, where we were accosted by a TSA Advocate For Persons Of Lesser Persuasions.  

"Excuse me sir, where is your family?"  

"Not sure exactly.  Back in Boston I suppose?"

"Then you have a disability?"

My girlfriend interjected at this point, being the responsible one.

"He's suffering from a serious existential crisis.  He is an artist you know.  He has a new album coming out soon, and he is distressed because of illegal downloading and the state of the music industry.  He comes from a difficult background, they never had enough to eat as children, and he despairs that although the blogs are quite nice to him, nobody is buying music anymore, and how much does a good review in a blog pay?  Have you read Angela's Asses?  His cousin had a minor part."

"Ok miss, take him through."

And with that they put us ahead of the old lady in the wheelchair.  I think it's bullshit anyway, old people can walk, and to be honest it would do them some good to get some exercise.  I've caught these geezers getting wheeled to the gate, cutting ahead to the front of the line, then jumping up out of the chair when no one is looking, like "where's the mile high club?"

Anyway, the girlfriend goes through the xray machine first, no problem.  She is partly Mexican, so she speaks the language and everything.  But when I go through the machine, the trouble starts.  I'm immediately brought over to a roped in area and ordered to stand quietly and mind my business.  The woman who pulled me out pointed right at my crotch.

"Do you have anything in your pockets?  What is that?"

"Ahhh, is this some kind of joke?"

"We don't tell jokes senior, do you have a pen in your pocket?"

"A pen!?  Now you wish to insult me?"

At this point she calls over another security dude, and they start yammering away in another language.  I see my girlfriend looking agitated and giving me the old 'what did you do' look, and all I can do is point to the offending bulge in my jeans.  So she marches over and breaks into the conversation, talking in Mexican, which I don't understand at all.  There is a back and forth, quizzical looks, all kinds of confusion.  Finally the security guy holds up his hand, I thought he was going to slap her, but just to shut her up.

"Miss, we do not speak Mexican here, we speak Cuban.  Let us both speak American and maybe we can find some common ground."

"Don't pull that Che Guevara shit with me Fidel, we have to get back to Boston, so what's the problem?"

"The problem, puta, is that there is too much of something in your husband's private area."

"First of all he's not my husband, no man will ever own me, don't pull that communist indoctrination shit with me, and second of all, when did it become illegal to be well endowed?"

"Miss, your Harvard University has lost much of it's endowment because of the financial crisis of this great country and the escapades of the terrible jew Bernard Madoff.  I am no anti-Semite, but a Cubano would never do such a thing, it is an atrocity."

At this point I could see this was all going nowhere, so I appealed to the woman who originally pulled me aside.  

"Miss, you seem like a reasonable sort, what must I do to satisfy your security measures?"  

I complimented her a bit, to curry favor, told her I admired her moustache, etc.  After much debate, they called over a younger security agent, a 20-something black dude who was heading off to his lunch break, he had just announced.  The security woman quieted everyone down and made her announcement.

"Seniors and Senioritas, there is a solution to this problem.  Jamal here will take Juan to the private security screening room.  Juan will remove his clothing and we will know the truth about what he is concealing in his trousers."

Jamal became pretty agitated, if not outraged.  

"Listen, this dude is white, he wears tight jeans, of course there's a bulge down there.  Look at the bootychokers the dude is wearing!"

"Hold on a second Jamal, I take offense, not all white people where tight jeans.  I think it's unfair to make a generalization about an entire group of people like that.  There are entire sub-genres of white dudes who wear baggy or ill fitting trousers, if not high waisted ones.  Not everyone shops at APC, you know?"

"Ok Juan, I apologize, I see your point.  Its like saying all black people are African American."  

"Exactly Jamal, we're all Americans here."

Finally the other security agents broke in and ordered Jamal, who obviously had lesser seniority or authority or whatever, to take me back to the room and get the security check done.  So we head back to this little room, it's just he and I, and immediately I can tell Jamal is uncomfortable.

"Fuck this shit man, this is why the government is so fucked.  Why didn't they get the gay dude to do this?  I fucking hate working for TSA.  I'd be so much happier if didn't have to work at this fucking place, but with this economy and my stock portfolio tanking, what am I gonna do, you know?"

"Look here Jamal, you can't delay your happiness.  If you keep putting conditions on it, like i'll be happy when I have a good job,' or 'i'll be happy when i get a new car' or 'i'll be happy when my girlfriend stops fucking my brother,' you'll never BE happy.  Happiness is not the destination, it's the journey my friend, it's the JOURNEY."

"Fuck man, that's some deep guru shit.  Where did you learn that?"

"From a refrigerator magnet."

"A refrigerator magnate?  Like the dude that owns Frigidaire or something?"

"Yeah something like that, it was a seminar.  Anyway, before we begin, can you turn up the heat in here?  It's pretty cold, and when we do this, I don't want you to get the wrong idea.  I know what people say about the Irish, and it's not true, but in these cold conditions it's hard not to come off like there's a walnut down there, you know?"

"Oh man, I don't care about the size of your johnson.  I just want to get this over with.  Why couldn't they get the gay dude to do it?  He'd actually enjoy it, you know?  Those guys are always coming at me like that.  I'm not gay or anything, but you know how it is, when you go out to the club, and then your drunk, and the girls won't have anything to do with you, and next thing you know your talking to some dude with makeup on, and you're thinking he looks ok, you know, but I'm not a faggot, so it's like what the fuck, and then so you're just like I'll let him give me a blow job.  That's not gay, right?  If you're drunk?"

"No man, that's not gay, and non one thinks your a fag, don't worry about it."

"Ok, Juan, let's do this, let's see what you've got."

And with that I had to remove my trousers and then my underwear, and lift everything up so he could see that I didn't have any weapons or cocaine hidden under there.  Of course I didn't, and once that was confirmed we quickly left the room and I found my travel companion, who tried to convince me that I should feel honoured to have been made to endure such a thing.  To be honest, I'm conflicted.  Life is short, and I don't want to waste time with moustached TSA ladies pointing at my crotch in front of a crowd of people and declaring "it's too much in there."  But as the buddhists say, you only live once, so you have to make the best of things.  So I went home to Boston and it was raining and even though I knew the god in space was punishing me with the weather, I didn't let it get me down, because I had played 5 parties in Miami and saw more breast implants than I have ever seen in my life.