ASK TSA

I had way too much fun with TSA’s recent smart page add: “Can I Bring ____ Through Security Checkpoint?” while packing…

I needed to double check if I could bring my “Pocket Constitution” or if they were planning on stripping me of all my rights, both figuratively and literally. 

Alas, it outsmarted my obvious security threats, which I probably can’t list here but it amused me for a solid ten minutes so I think it’s worth mentioning. 

I also learned that TSA has an iPhone app, so naturally I had to download it. 

And then somehow I got suckered into watching some MSNBC video clip by Brian Williams about US Air Marshalls and the “Underwear Bomber”… happy thoughts :) Apparently they are supposed to be very secretive when they fly, but didn’t Kim Kardashian tweet that she was sitting next to a US Air Marshall this past year??

Guess those rules of confidentiality don’t apply when you’re sitting next to hot chicks… sorry I forgot my Man-book.

But today’s the big day! I’m off to Ankara, Turkey! Yay!  Get to eat some really great food and have my fortune read from my Turkish coffee grounds. 

I’ll check back in once I’ve safely reached my destination and had my fill of sexy TSA pat-downs… don’t worry, I’ll let you know all about them. 

Censoring the Chicken

When I explained to my sister that I was thinking about doing a blog, her immediate concern was to censor me: “It needs to be PG,” she told me.  She’s no fun and way too practical.  She also knows me way too well. 

“PG-13,” I bantered back.

“Fine,” she compromised, “but that means no F-bombs and no S-H-bombs.”

“Boo.”  This was going to be worse than Google being restricted in China.

Swearing was like my like piece de resistance, my signature to any cynical sentence I retorted.  But like any addict I realized when I had a habit, and sometimes it had to come in the form of a little four year old telling you had a problem. 

I wouldn’t be in this predicament if I had been successful at my New Year’s resolution: Less swearing, especially around children.  Yes, I see this may seem like a strange resolution to have because “less” isn’t exactly an absolute.  But me giving up swearing is like Charlie Sheen giving up hookers:  it’s never happening in this lifetime no matter how many stunts to rehab are involved, but there’s always next year. 

I’m also quite sure some of you might be doing a bit of judging for the “swearing around children” part but that’s okay because I will never be asked to babysit for anyone again and I’m totally okay with that. 

I reached this conclusion that it was time to try censoring my speech a bit one recent wintery evening when I was cuddling with the four-year-old love of my life, my friend’s son, when I decided to ask him a very important question…

“Do you think Bekah should have a baby?” 

“Uh-No!” he replied almost immediately.

Choking back the laughter I asked, “Why?”

“Because you say bad words!”

“What?! No I don’t!”

“Yes you do!”  he argued.

“What do I say?”

Completely afraid of where this conversation was going, he responded eagerly with a Grinch-like smile.  “F*** Off!” he shouted.

“What! Don’t say that or I’ll spank your butt!” I seriously tried to stifle my laughter but this was borderlined epic. 

“I don’t say that.  You do!” he told me.  Smart kid.  And for the record, I don’t think I taught him that particular phrase.  But I won’t admit any accidently slippages during the course of my road rage, which everyone knows doesn’t count. 

But, absence makes the heart grow fonder, and in this case probably a better influence.  So a few days later I was trying to remind my four-year-old friend that I was going to be leaving for a while and that he wasn’t going to be seeing me. 

So I asked him like an insecure soccer mom, “You’re going to miss me, right?” trying to feed him the answer that I wanted to hear. 

“No,” he replied way too easily.  Damn this kid was good.  Most straight up man in my life.  “You’ll be back after, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied. “Only a few months and I will be back to see you.”  Then I asked the million-dollar question.  “Do you remember where I am going?”

He paused. “Chicken.” 

Close.  Turkey.  Chicken.  I mean they are in the same food group.  Why bother correcting him when he thinks I’m being roasted in a 375-degree oven with light rosemary marinate for the next three months? 

This is the grasp of a four year olds geography skills and thus the story of why I decided to blog as “The Wandering Chicken.” 

The Midnight Express

I recently had to venture to my doctors office to get shots for traveling overseas, which for most would be a normal experience.  Not me.  The story goes something like this:

Nurse comes in and gives me the shots & then the doctor starts to do the physical…

“Oh where are you going?” says my middle aged slightly tanned doctor.

“Ankara, Turkey.” I explain a bit about why I’m going and continue to awkwardly bullshit with him for a bit longer as I freeze half naked on the examining table. 

“Oh interesting…” I can see I’ve triggered some thought in his brain.  He pauses.  “Have you ever seen ‘A Midnight Express’?” he asks me. 

“Uh…no.” I say, a little unsure what this has to with our conversation I try to just listen because I start to feel a bit woozy from those shots.

“It’s a movie that takes place in Turkey when a guy is caught smuggling drugs into the country illegally and the movie is all about how horrible their prisons are in Turkey.”

My doctor decides to brief me on the detention facilities in Turkey, which is every travelers warmest thoughts before entering that country.  Geez… I wonder what their jails look like?  But he continues with his monologue on how terrible the conditions are just in case I was considering on doubling as a drug mule while being employed by the State Department.  And the best part about all this is, this guy thinks he’s funny! 

I wonder if he ever told this story during a prostate exam while prefacing, “turn your head and cough!” Now that joke would be a real winner.

“Don’t do drugs while you’re overseas in Turkey,” my doctor says chuckling to himself.  “Because those prisons are horrible… you should really watch the movie before you go; it’s a classic,” he adds. 

“Yeah, I’ve really got to kick those drug habits before I go overseas,” I say, throwing him a bone. 

I think he blinked twice but I couldn’t be sure.  His face was starting to look more like a Joan Rivers byproduct because he spent so much time at his new plastic surgery start-up practice and less and less time at his family practice and lets just say his face was starting to show the signs. 

The Doc didn’t know what to say.  He was hoping I was joking but he was trying to read my face to be sure. 

“Let’s go over your medical charts before you go,” says the Doc prevailing on the side on slight ambiguity as to whether I was a serious drug offender or not. 

I would have kept “stirring the pot” as my sister likes to phrase my shenanigans but at this point I was feeling quite uneasy from the shot and was more than satisfied with letting my family doctor of more than twenty years think that there was a possibility that I may be a drug mule, as long as I could go to Taco Bell after this ridiculous experience. 

But first, on my way out I had to do a quick fact check.  I pulled up IMDB on my iphone and apparently Joan was right, ‘The Midnight Express’ was a movie about detention facilities in Turkey… but it came out in 1978! How old did he think I was? 

Maybe next time I would see Doc at his other office…