The Jokes Write Themselves…

It seems that most major cities have descriptive nicknames. Seattle is “The Emerald City”, Chicago is “The Windy City”, New York is “The Big Apple”, and so on. I live in Miami Beach, but all of us in this area think of Miami, just across the bridge, as our hometown. Miami has tried over the years to find a nickname. The Chamber of Commerce folks for decades now seem to favor “The Magic City,” but that really hasn’t caught on. Every time the Hotel and Visitor’s Bureau folks make another push for this, the residents fight back with names like “The Tragic City” or worse…MUCH worse. I like to call it “The City Where Good Taste Goes to Die” but for some odd reason that hasn’t caught on either. Since it’s a perfectly adequate description of the area, I can only surmise that it hasn’t caught on because it’s too long. So I have another, shorter name to pitch for this place…one that is unmatched in its straight-to-the-point accuracy. How about “The Land of Irony” ?

Irony seems as common in south Florida as wild giant pythons choking to death on alligators, or as common as goats being sacrificed in religious rituals, or as common as politicians’ children counterfeiting U.S. currency, or as common as the thud made by huge comatose iguanas as they fall from trees during cold spells, or as common as…well…you get the idea. This is one weird place, and I don’t know whether living here for so long has been an adventure or an embarrassment. But perhaps nothing characterizes this area more than a recent incident containing enough irony to supply our nation’s strategic irony reserves for years to come. Of course the best irony is never obvious at first. It takes a bit of mental analysis and some time during which the events marinate. Only then does the real and tasty irony emerge.

Miami International Airport routinely ranks as one of the worst in the nation. The rankings are too generous. Speaking of irony…when you fly out of Miami International you often have to walk farther from the parking lot to your flight than you would have had to walk from your home to the destination to which you are flying. The terminal looks like the waiting room in a nineteenth century Indian railway station, only the passengers are less well dressed. The only things missing are the farm animals in the open wooden crates. Rather than the crates, here in Miami livestock generally is carried on planes hidden in counterfeit Louis Vuitton handbags. This can include, but is in no way limited to, chickens, hogs, and small cattle. Miami International Airport is also ground zero for the smuggling of rare, endangered and just plain strange wildlife. Lizards, tortoises, birds, and all manner of creatures are routinely discovered in the undergarments of travelers, and usually not just one creature at a time, but dozens, even hundreds. If you see movement in the pants of the passenger seated next to you, it’s not a compliment…it’s probably just a few rare and colorful songbirds worth thousands in the pet trade (the chirping sound emanating from beneath the zipper is the giveaway). Ah…life in “America’s Tropics.” But I digress…

At Miami International Airport, like other airports around the nation, they take security VERY seriously. So seriously in fact that the airport was one of the first to receive the newest model of Full Body Image Scanners. These devices are quite controversial because they do just what the name suggests…they present the security screeners with a full body image to show if the passenger is carrying anything that might be a threat to safety on-board the plane. These became necessary when, last Christmas Day, a young man aboard an incoming flight attempted to ignite an explosive secreted in a highly personal location. So now, it’s no longer just the luggage or the pocket contents…the Transportation Security Administration needs to make sure that you don’t have C-4 packed into your underpants, or packed into what you have packed into your underpants. So…enter the Full Body Image Scanner. Literally. But this being America, everyone is absolutely convinced that everyone else is anxious to see them naked. And once again, on the subject of irony…the people most convinced that others would want to see them naked are, trust me here, the people that you would LEAST want to see naked. Last time I was at this airport, I did an unscientific research project on this subject. I sat in a chair and looked around to see if I saw anyone that I would want to see naked. I saw very few, and, having seen myself naked on numerous unfortunate occasions, I can assure you that I am unconcerned about my own personal modesty being violated for the “entertainment” of others. But apparently some people are still obsessed with this, so the Full Body Image Scanners have been configured so that they obscure the face of the person being scanned. All in all, this is a REALLY complicated and expensive ($130,000-$170,000 per unit) piece of machinery. And they are apparently not all that easy to operate.

When the scanners were delivered to Miami International Airport, the TSA began training its personnel to use them. They did not use passengers or volunteers in the training, but they used other TSA agents to substitute for the passengers. One of the agents they selected to substitute for passengers was 44-year-old Rolando Negrin. Well, dear readers, if you weren’t concerned about these scanners or about the professionalism of the TSA screeners before, you will be now. Apparently, according to those operating the scanner, who would be in a position to know, Mr. Negrin is, how shall I put this…somewhat lacking in the marital relations equipment department…and the Full Body Image Scanner revealed this unfortunate condition to Mr. Negrin’s fellow TSA “professionals.” And so the taunts, and the nicknames, and the other miscellaneous incidences of ridicule began, and reportedly grew more and more intense. And remember…these are the folks that we are trusting with our lives.

So Mr. Negrin, he of the recently-revealed endowment or the lack thereof, selected the person who he believed to be his primary tormentor, fellow TSA screener Hugo Osorno, 34. He waited for Osorno in the employee parking lot, and when Osorno arrived Negrin proceeded to beat the crap out of him…and…here comes the irony…Negin’s weapon of choice?…an expandable police baton…one that triples in length when you use it. In Miami, The Land of Irony, the jokes truly write themselves.