Realizing Provision

A lot would need to change about me before anyone would hire me to work as one of those airport security personnel.

I don’t work that well under pressure.

I’m not very observant.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt. (For example, when people fly past me on the road when it is unsafe to do so and I am not even driving too slowly, I assume that someone in their car is probably about to give birth, and then I’m not so annoyed.) So, if a suspicious-looking person gave me a good story about why he needed to get on the plane without being finger-printed, I wouldn’t argue with him.

These are all reasons why I’m not planning to apply to be an airport security officer anytime soon. There is also the fact that they probably don’t hire nonresistant people.

But if these things weren’t realities, and I would be a security guard, I hope I would be like the ones at the Newark airport in 2014.

It was on the way home from the youth group mission trip to Guatemala that I met these security guards. I wasn’t yet 16, the minimum age for the trip, but I had received a bye because 1) my parents were going as youth sponsors, and 2) my brother Ricky was living in Guatemala at the time.

While on the way to security, Kayleen and I noticed that our boarding passes had been marked with a TSA pre-check logo. Apparently, airlines sometimes randomly select low-risk passengers for a free-trial of TSA pre-check, which allows them to go through security with a little less hassle.

That was cool. We got in a shorter line, and we didn’t have to take off our shoes. (Those are the only benefits I remember experiencing.)

However, we didn’t end up getting through security faster than the rest of the group, because it was really my day for being randomly selected.

When I walked through the metal detector, it beeped. The security guard on the other side waved his hand and said, “Go through again.”

But he added something unexpected in a tone indicating I should have known better.

“And smile this time!”

And I did smile, because his humor put me at ease, and I knew he was friendly.

It turned out that the lack of a smile wasn’t the problem though, because the metal detector went off again.

This time, the friendly security man told me I had been randomly selected for a fingerprint test. He had me step aside to another man who proceeded to show me where to put my fingers on his machine. While I was finger-printed, he made friendly conversation. I vaguely remember him assuming that I was from Lancaster or some other Mennonite-populated place in the US, but I don’t remember what else he said—except for one question. I remember his exact words. It was a question I had never been asked before, nor have I been asked it since. He said,

“You look like someone who would say ‘don’t cha know?’. Do you say that sometimes?”

I laughed, then replied, “I don’t think so.” I didn’t know for sure, but I was quite certain I had never said “don’t cha know?” in my life.

I left security with a big grin on my face and enjoyed telling Kayleen and then more of the group the story of the funny security guards. All the while, though, I was still a little puzzled at where his question came from.

Did I look like a know-it-all who said “don’t cha know?” to people incredulously when I thought them stupid? In what context did people even say “don’t cha know?”?

I’m still trying to figure out what makes a person look like they would say “don’t cha know?”. But I have decided that the Newark security man’s remark was a compliment.

Since being at Faith Builders, I have heard some very wise, knowledgeable, and admirable people say “don’t cha know?”. It’s not in a know-it-all way whatsoever. They use it when they tell stories. They say that this happened, and don’t cha know I was still over here and missed the whole thing.

Maybe someday, when I am using a story to illustrate an important concept, I will throw in a “don’t cha know.” It only seems right being I look like someone who would say it. But I would never have come to such a realization without the security guards at the Newark airport.

I would hope to be like those security guards, but not only because they had the ability to make me laugh. Maybe they noticed that I was a little nervous and were trying to put me at ease. Maybe they were just bored and trying to spice up their day. I would hope to be like those security guards because they noticed me, the person right in front of them, and took the short time they had to interact with me to, in a small way, connect with me as a human being.

That is the kind of security guard I would hope to be.