Amateur Travelers Need Not Apply

On our last trip through Orlando we had the dubious privilege of using the Expert Travelers Line, brought to you by those fine folks of the TSA (We Reserve the Right to Rifle Through Your Bags and Take Anything That We Can Resell On Craigslist). I know these have been popping up around the country but I, personally, hadn’t used one before.

I was initially encouraged by the sight of a TSA agent turning away a family with multiple small pre-adults, and their associated conveyances, termed strollers, I believe. Unfortunately, as quickly became evident, several people in line ahead of us really weren’t even minimally prepared to glide gracefully and faultlessly through the X-ray machines, metal detectors, backscatter scanners, pat downs, cavity search and psychological profiling that all experienced travelers who don’t have their own private jet, now consider an everyday occurrence.

So I thought the TSA should post a quick quiz for travelers to see if they are expert or not, kind of separating the wheat from the chaff as it were.

Expert Traveler’s Quiz

1. Can you put everything you need for a week-long business trip to Moscow in a 22” rollaboard bag?
   1. What’s a rollaboard?
   2. Does that include trinkets for the natives?
   3. Maybe. Is it winter? If not, then that means that the trip is scheduled for the last week of July, so yeah, I can handle that.
   4. Yes, but I’ll need to take my other personal carry-on, which is the size of a smallish Great Dane, which won’t fit under my seat, so I’ll still need to run over some elderly people and small children during boarding so I can get on the plane first to snag the necessary overhead bin space.
2. At meal time, the flight attendant announces that you can choose between the Chicken Cordon Bleu, or the Steak au Poivre. What do you do?
   1. Go back to your seat in coach, only people in first class get hot food.
   2. Tell the flight attendant “Hey, hey, I’m on an all liquid diet, you know, Vitamin JB, like Jim Beam”, lean over, throw up in your neighbor’s lap, and pass out.
   3. Politely decline the offerings, since you have fond childhood memories of both these dishes, and eating the airline equivalent would ruin them for you forever.
   4. Pinch yourself to wake up from the dream you’re obviously having, since no one serves anything like that on domestic flights anymore, even in first class.
3. Despite the best efforts of the TSA, you manage to get through the security line in record time and still have two hours before your flight starts boarding. You decide to:
   1. Shop! You have a collection of shot glasses from different cities around the country. So far you have acquired three shot glasses. Time to obtain Number Four!
   2. Eat! Did you know they have TGIFridays in some airports? Isn’t that awesome?
   3. Go to the Admiral’s Club/Red Carpet Club/Upper Class Clubhouse and try and catch up on some emails.
   4. Ride! Around and around on the AirTrain between Terminal 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and then do it all over again!
4. Does your luggage contain any of the following:
   1. A case of Miller Lite because that foreign beer tastes funny.
   2. Two hundred condoms and a phrase book entitled 101 Ways To Pick Up Eastern Slovenian Sex Workers.
   3. Just clothing and a toiletry kit, anything of any value is in your carry-on bag.
   4. Jewelry worth more than $100,000.

Note: If you answered D, please write down your name and the color and size of your bag and hand the note to your nearest TSA agent.

Final Question

Are your lips moving while you’re reading this, even a little?

If yes, please proceed to the line that is not labeled Expert Traveler.

If no, and if you answered C for every other question, you may consign yourself to the tender mercies of your friendly and efficient TSA agent in the Expert Travelers Line.

Congratulations and good luck!