Matt pulled up to the airport after a long cab ride out of Pittsburgh with just enough time to catch his flight to Austin. What a perfectly timed weekend he’d been having! He reached into his pants and was surprised to be met with an unusual absence… His wallet was missing! He’d left it almost an hour away at Mike’s. The reluctant adventurer just shook his head.

He paid the driver with a photo of the credit card from his phone and raced through to security. He’d boarded a flight before without ID, there was no reason to believe his white male privilege wouldn’t work again. But this line, it was outrageous! People snaked back from the checkpoint, mazed around pylons, and continued further back into the main rotunda. The looks on their faces making it plainly obvious that they weren’t moving quickly.

Matt nope’d out of the line and explained his situation to a nearby guard, concluding with:

“And if you need to strip me naked, look through all my stuff, whatever, that’s fine, but I need to get on that flight.” This was a work trip and, despite recent events that might prove otherwise, he was a responsible adult now.

They assured him that a cavity search wouldn’t be necessary and pulled him aside. They queried his past addresses, birthdate, family, everything, with all of his answers fed to an invisible man on the other end of a phone. Each answer brought some silent waiting and further questions.

“This is like a test, where only I know all the right answers!” the traveler said excitedly after absolutely nailing the question about his social security number.

“You’d better get them all right,” the officer growled back.

Once sufficiently proven to be of no suspicious background, Matt was pawned off to the physical inspection team. This group was more chatty.

“What’s with the ski goggles?” his attendant asked him, walking up as Matt emptied his pockets into the bins on the conveyor belt.

“Ah! Glad you noticed!” Matt responded, buying time to think of a better excuse for why he wore them in spring other than that he thought they looked cool, “I wear them because they help me sleep better on the plane.”

“Sure, sure,” the man cautiously agreed.

He was quickly patting Matt down, probably reassured by his subject’s winked permission to ‘do whatever he had to do, no questions asked.’ The pair joked around a bit and waited for the all-clear on the explosive residue test with Matt’s bag.

“You’re good to head out,” the man affirmed, waving behind him, “and sleep well on the flight!”

Matt smiled and nodded before rushing off to the gate.

Two hours later, he was landed and connecting through Charlotte, retrieving his bag from the overhead compartment while everyone shuffled off. As he waited for his turn to deplane, the father (with positively HUGE dad hands) across the aisle asked him what he was watching.

“What I’m watching? What do you mean?”

“You know, what movie are you watching?” He gestured at Matt’s face, “I’ve seen people with some that even had surround sound in them.”

“Oh no,” Matt assured the man, “they’re just regular ski goggles. I wear them because they look cool.”

“You’re trying to look like Cyclops, huh?” a young man behind them joked.

“Oh, totally!” Finally someone understood! “If only I had the eye lasers too, that’d be awesome!”

“I don’t think they’d let you on the plane if you had the lasers.”

“Well I wouldn’t tell them, would I?” he concluded, cocking an unseen eyebrow behind the visor. The young man chuckled and agreed.

Matt smiled and walked off to catch his connection. Like he’d go inform the authorities that he was a mutant? Some people were ridiculous.