My Idiotic Misadventures: The Saga Continues…

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN FLYING WITHOUT PICTURE IDENTIFICATION.

So again, I lose my wallet and everything important including my driver’s license. I think I may suffer from sort of mental disability, but whatever… Let’s get to my story! One thing to point out; If you don’t have your driver’s license, you’re pretty much screwed. At any rate, I had purchased plane tickets the week before, and now I was completely panicked.

I settled down enough to give a call to Southwest to explain how my dumb ass lost my wallet and see about canceling my flight and the possibility of getting a credit for a future flight once I’d received my replacement I.D. To my surprise, the agent on the other end of the telephone said that while he certainly could give me a credit for a future flight if I canceled, it was possible for one to fly post 9/11 without a picture I.D. He asked me what identification I did have. I told him I had a temporary I.D. and my official birth certificate. He said that would be fine as long as The Pope or the President of The United States wasn’t scheduled to fly in that same day. I would just need to set aside some more time because they’d put me under the magnifying glass. I thought about this for a moment; Do I do what I always do and err on the side of caution or do I just say “eff it!” and do an experiment for all my friends. I chose to say “Eff it!” and decided to show up an hour early, not knowing what level of scrutiny the TSA would put me through.

I arrived early at the airport the day of the flight. I got in line with my ticket, birth OFFICIAL certificate and temporary drivers license. I got to the TSA Agent and explained what had happened. Then I produced the three documents. She was a bit thrown and said, “I know this can be done, let me just refer to my manual.”

I guess there aren’t tht many idiots stupid enough to try this stunt. She thumbed through her little binder and then found the information she needed. She then proceeded to write “SSSS” at the bottom of my ticket. She then waived me through so I could make my way up to the X-Ray screening area. As I got to the TSA agent in front of the metal detector, I showed him my ticket, he said, “You’ve been selected for addition screening please step into this area while we search your carry oon items.” He made me stand in this little Plexiglas booth behind him and then alerted the other agents to go through my stuff. They then opened up my back pack and sifted around in it. Next he asked me to step out of the booth where he then patted me down. After that, I was cleared to move on. I noticed that they had put a little sticker on the back of my ticket. I later learned that this is crucial when you get additional screening. When you board the flight, when they see that your ticket has the “SSS” on the front, they flip it over and make sure that the sticker is oon the back to verify that you were patted down and that your bags had been searched.

Now of course, I still didn’t have my driver’s license on my flight home. This time I was leaving from a major airport hub. So I had the feeling I may get more hassled. Any way, the experience was similar, however they had to call the main TSA supervisor to grill me before they would sign off on the ticket. He asked me more questions about my birth date, how long ago I had lost my wallet which wasn’ enough time to be re-issued a valid driver’s license and I had to explain that they let me through flying out here and about how they put the “SSSS” on the ticket, searched me and let me through. I guess since I was familiar with the drill, he knew I was legit.. Or maybe he didn’t know what to do. Who knows, but he wrote the “SSSS” on my ticket told me to move to the next area. The slacker TSA Agent at the metal detector didn’t check my ticket because she was too busy telling me how cool the Warped Tour was ( Do I look like I care about the Warped Tour? ) and another agent caught it and then chastised her then patted me down as the other agents looked through my stuff at the X-Ray Station. He asked me who I spoke with and I had recalled that the supervisor’s name was “Stan”: so I threw that out and he seemed satisfied with that. I was let through and noted that the sticker was placed on the other side of my ticket. I would say it added no more than ten minutes each way to my travel time (if that)

While I don’t recommend for anyone to do this, I wanted to pass this bit of information along just in case you happen to be an diot like yours Truly and lose your wallet days before you need to make a domestic plane flight. I want everyone to know that if this situation does happen to you, it’s not the end of the world as long as you have some sort of documentation and a little extra time.

But like I said before, you can never say that I didn’t live!