So I finally got a job. With the TSA. The interviewer was a little grumpy about my name being Murphy. He said it'd be better if my name was LaShawn or Wing Lee or Mahmood, as they liked being diverse. I told him my middle name was Pierre, which is Belgian or Swedish or something, so that made him happy. Anyway, ten bucks an hour, health insurance, and ten percent off at the airport food concessions! Vegan hot dogs here I come!

May 5

Training day. The trainer was this guy named Fritz. He had a really short haircut and tight leather pants. He yelled a lot and sort of stomped around the room, kicking his legs up high. Kind of reminded me of my third-grade teacher, Mr. Lunz, the one who kept on getting sent to jail. I didn't learn much in third-grade, which was great. He was a good teacher. Anyway, Fritz showed us how to use pepper spray, how to get people in choke holds and the proper way to conduct a full body search. He got one of the trainees to go up and help him with the full body search. A guy named Trevor. It was a pretty comprehensive search. I'm afraid I had to close my eyes a few times. Fritz got all red and sweaty while he was doing it. Then he pepper sprayed Trevor, right when Trevor was saying something about his lawyer. Trevor kind of screamed and thrashed around. It was pretty educational. Fritz said you can make salad dressing out of pepper spray if you're out of normal pepper. That's great. I love salad.

May 9

First day at work. These uniforms are awesome. The boots are great. Love the steel toes. We have a list of people types we're supposed to concentrate on: old white ladies in wheelchairs, little kids, fat white guys in business suits and soccer moms. I guess the terrorists are getting really clever about how they disguise themselves. My supervisor's name is Farood al-something or another. I can't really understand his accent. Or maybe he isn't speaking English to me. That's okay. My humanities professor in junior college said that English is an oppressive symbol of patriarchal colonialism, whatever the hell that means, so we should avoid speaking it as much as possible. I guess Farood had the same class.

May 10

Did my first full body search. It was an old woman who set off the metal detector like fireworks on the 4th. Except that's an oppressive white man's holiday. She said it was her bridge in her mouth, two metal hip replacements and a plate in her skull, but Farood told me they're always lying about these things. I snapped on my blue gloves. Her eye shadow was the same color. She was pretty squishy, except for her hips. I could feel something hard and rigid underneath all her fat. She said thank you very much, young man, and told me she'd have to fly more and then asked me when I got off work.

May 11

There sure is a lot of diversity in air travelers! That is good to see and it warms my heart because it means we are a real melting pot, or at least a stew, of a country. There was a lady (at least I think it was a lady) who came through dressed in some kind of tent. She probably does great with the mosquitoes when camping. She was looking through the part of the tent that would've been right at the top--you know, the slit that allows air to circulate. She was traveling with a guy dressed in white robes with a big beard and a doily on his head. He said I should not talk to her as I was a smelly infidel. I did a quick overhand stretch--I told him it was because my back muscles were tight-- in order to surreptitiously smell my armpits. I was still good. Right Guard is strong stuff. They both set off the metal detectors. Farood did their search, but he just did it by bowing to them. He said that works real well if they're not white or named Hank. They said something to each other, I think about Allah's Snackbar or something like that. That lady in the tent looked pretty hungry--or at least her size looked pretty hungry. Maybe it's a new place in the food court. I'll have to try it out. I like southern food. Then there was an old guy in a wheelchair. He was pretty suspicious, particularly when his false teeth popped out of his mouth and hit me on the arm. Farood pepper sprayed him and then said I should press assault and battery charges against him and also put in for a hazard pay bonus.

May 12

Nancy Pelosi came by! Wow. I'm still trembling. She normally doesn't fly commercial, but one of her aides said something about her Air Force jet being in the shop. She didn't say anything herself, but I think she looked somewhere near in my direction. She set off the metal detector and her aide whispered that it was because she was a cyborg and mostly machinery inside. We all had a good laugh about that. I didn't realize politicians are such jokers. It makes me feel good inside that our leaders have good senses of humor. Then they moved off down the hallway. She doesn't really walk. She sort of glides like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. She has mad skills.