Volume 4, Issue 31: Hearts Hard to Find

"There's something wrong with me. Maybe I'm just bad."

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Yesterday, as I was checked into security in Atlanta for a flight to the auburn plains of Central Illinois, I got to do my favorite joke.

I know that it is not a good idea to joke in security lines, and not just because of their grave theatrics, the way that the last 20-plus years have transformed American culture, in every possible fashion, into the polar opposite of a “make a joke at an airplane security checkpoint” country. The jobs of the people who work at airport are difficult enough—I cannot think of a group of people I’d want to talk to all day less than an endless scroll of humans trying to get on an airplane—without having some wisenheimer trying out one-liners on them. I have bottomless reservoirs of respect for those who work on airport security lines, in large part because there are few jobs I personally would find more miserable. As a general rule, I like people. I suspect this would be tested if I worked in airport security.

But I cannot resist my favorite joke. It works. It always, always works.

You cannot force the joke. You have to wait for the exact situation where the joke will have maximum impact. But when opportunity arises—and this opportunity arises regularly in airport security lines—I would argue you owe it to the universe to do the joke.

Thus. We all stand in long lines for security, and the line always clogs at the end, just before you send your carry-on through the scanner. This is the point where the beleaguered employee dutifully asks each person for their ID, looks at it, looks back at the person, verifies that the person looks as exhausted and defeated right now as they did when they made through the DMV’s line to get their ID photo taken, puts the ID into the machine, confirms that it’s a real ID and then wearily beckons you on through. Of the various sections of the airport security line, this is the most meat-grinder of all of them: It would be dystopian if it weren’t so relentlessly dreary.

(And remember: It wasn’t very long ago that none of these people were getting paid.)

So anyway, the joke. The key to the joke is that they have to initiate the joke. When you are in that line, and you are near the end, every person around you will be staring impatiently at the TSA agent, which has to be another terrible part of that job, just an infinite number of strangers looking irritated at you. Because everyone is all eyeing the TSA agent, it is often difficult for that agent to tell how many people are in each party when they wave the next passengers to come through. So many times they will ask for assistance, specifically by asking the question, as they look at the next group of people in line: “Are you together?”

This is the key question. This is your in. It must be asked exactly like this. You cannot force it.

When this question is asked—and I’d say, when I’m traveling by myself, it’s asked roughly 30 percent of the time—you have to be ready to respond immediately. This is the sort of joke that no one can see coming. If they see it coming, you’ve already lost.

So, when I went through security in Atlanta yesterday, I waited my 20 minutes to get to the end of the line. There was a large man behind me wearing a camouflage hat and a massive jacket that could fit both of my children and both of their schoolteachers. He was doing a lot of huffing. He did not enjoy spending much of his Friday afternoon in line. He towered over me, and was staring at the TSA agent just like I was.

After sending a teenage girl with a Nirvana T-shirt through, the agent looked up and made eye contact with me, then the man behind me.

“Are you together?”

“Oh, uh, no,” I said, looking behind me briefly, just enough. “He does seem like a pretty nice guy, though.”

I swear to you, my Saturday morning companions, on my most valuable of possessions and whatever reputational capital I have accrued in my life and career: She laughed. She actively, loudly laughed, a spat-out, involuntary laugh—the best kind. And the guy behind me did too. He laughed even louder.

The TSA agent then gave me an amused head-shake and a little you-smartass smirk. She then waved me over, smiled, took my ID, confirmed my identity and went on with her day. And so did I.

I know that I am this guy. I am the person, if you enter an elevator with me that already has people in it, who will talk to the other people, crack a little joke, try to make everybody feel comfortable to stave off feeling uncomfortable myself. (This is a great reason for you, if I am about to get in an elevator with you, to take the stairs.) Awkward silences are impossible for me to abide. It’s a fundamental trait. I’m not sure it can be fixed. I am not proud of it. But it is who I am.

But there are times, when a joke lands just right, when people who do not know each other and will never see each other again, have a brief moment, in the midst of another exhausting day, where they remember that this world is silly and random and worth sharing a second of private commiseration and amusement with a joke that only the three of you will ever understand. I have no idea who those people at the security line are, what they believe, what they value, if they’re putting good into the world, whether they’re sad or lonely or scared. But in that second—and just that second—we were best friends. I’ll take one of those seconds every day, anytime I can get them.

It is not smart to chase these moments. I’m sure it’s pretty annoying, actually. But I cannot resist. If you are with me when I am doing this, I apologize in advance. But know that I will never, ever stop.

Here is a numerical breakdown of all the things I wrote this week, in order of what I believe to be their quality.

1. The Marinos: The Best Players Looking For Their First World Series Title, MLB.com. I’m glad baseball isn’t as obsessive about this as other sports, but it’s still fun to track.

2. College Football Shouldn’t Be NFL Lite, But It Now Is, New York. Go Illini! Smash those Wyoming Cowboys!

3. Your MLB Schedule Breakdown, MLB.com. I got to see this a day early and basically planned out my entire 2023 schedule accordingly.

4. The Best Remaining Series in the 2022 Season, MLB.com. You know my team has been winning a lot lately because I am absolutely obsessed with every single baseball game that’s happening right now.

5. Would Anything Make Trump Ever Admit He Lost? Medium. Probably not.

6. America Is Going on Nearly 20 Years of Dissatisfaction, Medium. That last month Americans were excited about the direction of the country: January 2004!

7. The Thirty: Best Award Candidates on Each Team, MLB.com. Finding one for the Tigers was difficult.

8. The Thirty: Your Top Pending Free Agents For Every MLB Team, MLB.com. I’m already tired of talking about Aaron Judge’s free agency and he’s not even a free agent yet.

9. Your Friday Five, Medium. When I think back on all the crap I learned in high school, it's a wonder I can think at all.

PODCASTS

Grierson & Leitch, we discussed “Beast,” “Collateral” and the great “Dog Day Afternoon.”

Seeing Red, Bernie and I cannot stop talking about this Cardinals team.

Waitin' Since Last Saturday, we did our big Georgia season preview with the team’s greatest beat reporter, The Athletic’s Seth Emerson.

LONG STORY YOU SHOULD READ THIS MORNING … OF THE WEEK

“The Obsessive Pleasures of Mechanical-Keyboard Tinkerers,” David Owen, The New Yorker.

This piece was not written specifically for me. But it sure did feel that way.

ONGOING LETTER-WRITING PROJECT!

This is your reminder that if you write me a letter and put it in the mail, I will respond to it with a letter of my own, and send that letter right to you! It really happens! Hundreds of satisfied customers!

Write me at:

Will Leitch
P.O. Box 48
Athens GA 30603

CURRENTLY LISTENING TO

“Humbug Mountain Song,” Fruit Bats. Add the Fruit Bats to the ever-growing list of bands I discovered years after everyone else did, like a big dumb idiot. (This is happening with increasing frequency as I get older!)

Remember to listen to The Official Will Leitch Newsletter Spotify Playlist, featuring every song ever mentioned in this section.

I am in Champaign, here to root on the Illini in their Week Zero game against those hated, wretched Wyoming Cowboys. I was a part of Illinois athletic director Josh Whitman’s pregame run this morning, and let me tell you, the best way to speed up your time (and destroy yourself when you forget how old you actually are) is by trying to keep pace with college wrestlers, who are in the platonic ideal of “good shape.” I can’t feel my legs. (And apparently can’t keep my eyes open in photos.)

Go Illini! Have a great weekend, all.

Best,
Will