Greetings from the friendly skies. iPad related typos…please cut me some slack.
Anyway, airports fascinate me. On one hand, it’s a wonder they work as well as they do. On the other, it’s the most inefficient place I can think of. Everything seems like it should be going faster. Maybe because I’m always late, but really: how long does it take to get your shoes off? And am I still required to take off my shoes because of that one jackass like 10 years ago?
Anyway, I find myself very frustrated at airports. Hang around me before a 7 am flight, and you’ll be able to see every miserable thing going on at an airport. These places bring out the worst in me, even though I always go in a good mood.
So what’s bothering me today?

All these badges at the airport.
Somehow, a badge has come to connote some sort of authority. At least that’s what people think, because every toothless person whom you really actually should listen to has a badge. These people tend to have a purpose, but no power. It must be an annoying life. Your boss is all over you, and the people you deal with would show kore respect to Barney Fife. There is no winning.
I’m certain these people’s bosses are aware of that. As a result, they’re given something to make people realize these people need to be listened to. That something is a badge.
Most of us know you can get a badge in a cereal box, so who’s really stuntin that? But, for people with badges, it’s not just an accessory or a pin. It’s all they’ve got, in a way.
You ever notice how badged people always seem to be doing the most? Talking to you in technical code, even though you don’t work there and don’t care! today, I had a dude with a badge tell me something about some equipment, which he identified by model name, wasn’t working and held up the line. I think it was the scanner.
Why not say “scanner?” Gotta live up to that badge, man.
Of course, when you think of a badge, you think of the cops. Or maybe, specifically, an old detective who flashes it from some leather case, all cool with it. I get why the badge makes people feel like somebody.
But you know what those cats have with their badges? Guns, that’s what. That’s the real power right there. Guns.
It ain’t no badge.
Now, again, I feel bad for the badged and gunless. After all, don’t you wish teenagers respected mall security? You could go to the mall on Saturday night without worrying what one of those little suckers might do (teenagers are ticking time bombs, looking to impress somebody). I’m on Top Flight’s side here, I swear.
But unless people learn to handle badges, we will have but one choice: make badges and guns package deals. So, if you get a badge, you get a gun. No gun, no badge. It’s that simple.
Of course, this doesn’t mean more guns. Mall cops with guns? They get disrespected too much and don’t have enough to do. That would ge a dark, dark, dark comedy.
This would mean no more badges for people like this cat in an apartment complex Kirk used to live on. Dude was apartment security and had the nerve to call himself “lieutenant.” They didn’t even give him a Mag light, but he was the lieutenant.
No more badge. And God, yes, he’d get stripped of his rank.
I think this would improve the world. At the very least, the airport, where pushing wheelchairs seems to come with a badge. We could get our stuff faster I’d folks didn’t have the pressure of these badges.
So let’s just do this and make America better, ha?