Last Monday night we were rushing to the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport in our rental car for our flight back to Cleveland, talking about all the awesome people we met at PyCon. We returned the car to the appropriate lot, located at the south end of the five-mile-long airport, and took a shuttle to our departure gate. Our flight was boarding in five minutes.

Ian printed our boarding passes and distributed them. Luckily, there was nobody in line at the security checkpoint, and we were prepared to be sitting on the plane in no time. An older woman took our boarding passes and IDs to wave us through. After a moment, no such waving was granted. "Where's the expiration date?" she asked me, looking over my Rhode Island identification. I told her that it was just a state ID, not a driver's license (I don't drive), and there is no expiration date. I'm accustomed to saying this at every airport, and the reply I usually get is "You're absolutely right sir, go right ahead."

Not with this woman. After trying to persuade her in a friendly manner it became clear that she wasn't having any of my "questionable" identification. "This says you're under 21, which is not true, and the picture doesn't even look like you." I offered to remove my glasses, but that didn't cut it. "Do you have any other forms of 'current' identification?" Ah ha! My Case RTA pass from last semester — it has an expiration date and a more recent photo. She looked it over and apparently it was not good enough since it expired on January 17th.

This is when Ian and Chris joined in. An ID with my name and picture on it that expired one month ago is not current enough? Surely it's not much different from the same form of ID that expires, say, tomorrow? Chris argued with her over her strict definition of "current" while I pulled every card I had out of my wallet. "How about a credit card?" I offered. "It has my name and an expiration date." She looked it over and refused it because it wasn't signed — I had instead printed "SEE MY AWESOME RHODE ISLAND IDENTIFICATION" on the back. "I'll sign it for you right now, let's do it." Not good enough. Surely the combination of all three cards — my signed Rhode Island ID, a bus pass with a recent photo, and an unexpired credit card in my name — should be sufficient? I even let her know that I've been to several airports and never had a problem, to which she said "Well this is DFW!" Oh, my mistake. We continued to argue over how silly it is that a Sam's Club card would be sufficient (her suggestion), but none of what I had.

Chris asked to talk to her supervisor, since we clearly weren't getting any closer to the plane. We all walked over to him, while the woman explained the situation to him in a way that was clearly trying to convince him that I was bad news. He took my boarding pass. "Professor Brian Beck?" he asked, looking it over. "Yes, that's me," I replied sincerely, stepping forward. Since I booked our seats, we were flying as Professor Brian Beck, Reverend Ian Charnas, and Sir Christopher Hesse, naturally. He took my other forms of identification and asked if I had anything else. As a last resort, I selected a family health insurance card from my wallet, positive that it would serve no purpose, having no photo, no expiration date, and several other people with different last names listed.

He held up the insurance card. "What are the last four digits of your social security number?" I quickly recited them. He wrote something on my boarding pass. "Anyone else have any Awesome Rhode Island Identification?" he asked, clearly amused. He returned my boarding pass and we were allowed to continue to the security checkpoint. I was taken aside and patted down while my bags were searched, thanks to a special mark the supervisor had scribbled on my boarding pass. "How paranoid do you have to be..." I thought. I gathered my things after being touched while Chris and Ian waited, then we headed for our gate.

I read my health insurance card closely. There was no trace of a social security number printed anywhere.

Once on the plane, we met up with the remaining members of our criminal mastermind organization. "The old driver's license trick?" they asked, and we all had a laugh. "Fooled them again!!" I thought, arming my wristwatch.