It’s technically Day 3 in South Bend, Indiana. Hi Pete….even though I heard you moved to Michigan to hopefully become a vice-presidential candidate with your now governor. 👀

I’m currently sitting at South Bend International terribly early for my flight. I had to check out of the hotel in the morning and my flight doesn’t leave until around 7pm. Hello blogging and reading time! I have no problems sitting around for that long. I can come up with things to do. I grew up in the country. We learned how to fill our time without all the electronics and crap that kids have today. I’ll be good.

I took an Uber here from the hotel and honestly couldn’t have had a nicer driver. Tykeesha was awesome. We talked the whole time, even though the drive was only about two miles. She was just so very nice…..something that I’m getting used to up here. Who knew?!

I get into the airport and it was a straight shot to the security checkpoint. There was a portly man standing at his station with a smile. A SMILE, I TELL YOU! Who sees that on a TSA agent? And there are some cute ones too. Anyways, I approach him and he asks for my ID and to look into the camera. That being done, he hands back my ID with a smile and says to have a great day.

I was floored.

I get it, this is a small airport. I’m sure a rush here is for Notre Dame football games or something special going on. It’s definitely nothing like Atlanta with hundreds of thousands of people going in and out all day long. I know the TSA agents there deal with so much more shit than these here do. That being said, is it that hard to just smile? I am the poster child of resting bitch face (RBF) and I know that some people probably think that I’m pissed most of the time. It reminds me of Ouiser Boudreaux

“I’m pleasant. Damn it! I saw Drum Eatenton this morning at the Piggly Wiggly, and I smiled at the son of a bitch ‘fore I could help myself.”

When I go through TSA, no matter where I am, I try to be a pleasant person. I try to show that I’m not a grumpy bastard and that I think I am too special to be searched. Sure, Larry….you can rub my crotch if you’d like. It’s only flesh. Maybe a bit extra! That has happened to me. I guess the revolving body ready wasn’t happy with me and this guy…possibly family….asked me to stand over to the side. He told me what he was going to do and before my brain and my mouth could be on a conference call to see what came out next, I said, “Dude, I’m gay. You’re not gonna do anything wrong to me.” He kinda grinned and proceeded to seaerch me like I was some kinda human Find-N-Circle puzzle. I was afeared that I was gonna pop a boner, but alas, my brain kicked in and prevented that from happening.

All that to say, TSA agents have gone through some shit. When you have dumbass people in governement that get elected to do the people’s business but can’t get out of their own way, we the people suffer. People get into Washington DC and they become bulletin boards for corporation logos. Their pockets become full from money donated by people who obviously want to see everyone else suffer. “It’s what I want! Not what those losers want!” The outcome is we go more into debt and then they can’t figure out a budget. The next step is people get pissy and they decide to shut down the government and people, like TSA agents, don’t get paid. These people have bills and families like all those bastards in DC. You can’t expect people to work for free. If electricity, water, internet, and food were all free, it might be a different story. They didn’t ask for the government to create the TSA after 9/11 where everyone getting on a plane was searched and considered a criminal until they went through the scanner. They just saw a job creation and figured they would step up to help out. Someone had to do it.

Like all jobs, we have to report to someone unless you own your own business. TSA agents have managers. Managers have boses. The boses have the government. It’s a career silo I would never put myself in. Some, like soldiers, can live with the government red tape. There’s enough red tape when you work for a corporation. Can you imagine the endless tape that comes with a government job? Screw all that! I’m sure that has something to do with the frowns and near bitchy behavior. Just look at your local postal worker and you will understand.

Nevertheless, we all have shit jobs. Mondays suck. Days before new version rollouts suck. All hands meetings suck. Teams suck. Introductions suck. Team building exercises suck. Customers can suck if they don’t know how to use things correctly….even after you’ve provided documentation on every step of the process. People suck. That’s all encompassing. But, we all live on Earth and there are things we have to do to survive. Travel is one of those things for many of us who have corporate jobs.

There’s one rule that we should all strive to live by…..Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It’s not always simple, but as we mature in life, it should become evident that if we want to have a good life around others, we have to be the bigger person. Give the smile. Give the head nod if that’s your thing. Someone may have stumped their toe when they got out of bed that morning. Maybe they had a fender bender on the way to work. There’s no promise that your kind investment is going to have a positive return, but maybe, just maybe, your action with cause a positive feeling in yourself…..and your stubbed toe from that morning.