On my last trip home my parents took me to the airport so I could fly back to ATL for school and my mom always takes sending me off harshly, she sniffles and holds back the tears as long as she can but she can’t hide it totally.
So I give her a goodbye hug and kiss and head through security, walking through the queue and the guard at the metal detector lets a string of three guys through and so I make the mistake of assuming I’m following behind and as I lurch forward he motions for me to stop.
Now, unlike most TSA employees. This guy is big. I mean, he looks me in the eye (I’m 6’5") and he easily has me outweighed by fifty lbs. But he also has the twinkle in his eye and as he steps through the metal detector he says, “So… we got a troublemaker here eh?”
And I know he’s joking, but I couldn’t help but get nervous since it could easily turn bad if someone didn’t know he was joking.
“Oh… ah… no.” Being the cunning linguist I am, I come out with those insightful retorts.
“Oh I think so. You must be heading back to school, who dropped you off?”
“My… my mom and my sister, they’re right out there.”
“Well, did you give her a hug and a kiss?”
“Yep.”
“Well turn around, I want to see something.” He’s got humor written all over his face and as I turn around he grasps my right arm firmly and yanks it in the air to comically force me to wave to her. And when he lets go of my arm I drop it and turn back around, but he’s not done yet.
“Boy, that’s your mama, you only get one in life. You better turn back around and blow her a kiss, else these people are gonna get mighty tired waiting for you.”
I laugh and do as he said, turning around I give my mom a dramatic “Good Night New York” blown kiss and she returned a much less big blown kiss and I waved once more before I heard, “Alright troublemaker, let’s go. You’re up.”
And he’s right, you only get one mom. Never forget it.
