April 22, 2005

How I wound up on the Homeland Security list

By Dona Nichols
Times Columnist

My husband Ralph and I decided to celebrate our children’s birthday by taking them to Universal Studios. Our twins, Dylan and Alexis, would be turning 9 just two days before their brother Cody turned 11.

A combination birthday party seemed like the perfect plan. It also meant the grandparents and other relatives could join us since they live within minutes of the theme park.

The kids were perfect and odor-free on the flight down Friday afternoon. They were halfway decent once we arrived too, which was no big surprise since the weekend was centered on their happiness.

Saturday ended with a pleasant stroll along Universal’s City Walk where Cody spent some of his birthday money in a magic shop. He bought a hand buzzer, a leaking fountain pen and a ballpoint pen that shocks you when you touch it. Pretty typical stuff for an 11-year-old.

Once the party was officially over and it was time to head back to reality, things changed. Faster than Britney Spears can say “I do,” get divorced and say “I do” again, these kids started battling.

I thought the fighting would stop once we were back in our hotel room, but no, no, no. Cody couldn’t sleep because Alexis had touched his pillow. We begged her not to touch his stuff but apparently the temptation was just too great.

Sunday started at 3 a.m. when the fire alarms throughout the hotel went off for 27 minutes straight. We found out later that a drunken prankster attending his high school reunion had been caught on video pulling the alarm.

My mother-in-law took us to the airport and gave us the two loads of laundry we had forgotten on our last trip. While Ralph and I were trying to get all the extra clothes stuffed into the pockets and pouches of the suitcases, our boys unleashed and crashed the wheelchairs. All 50 of them.

We still managed to check in for our 10:30 flight at 9:35. The attendant told us we were late. It seems Ralph misread the San Jose arrival time as our departure time. Our flight actually left at 9:40.

Ralph told me to go on ahead with the kids while he finished with the luggage. Of course the boys chose this time to start bickering.

There are signs everywhere in the airport saying that security is nothing to joke about. Apparently Cody didn’t see these signs. As we entered the x-ray line the lady checked my identification with my boarding pass. With the kids she just asked them their names.

When it was Cody’s turn however, he thought he’d act cute. He played dumb and said, “Uh, um, um.” Then he grabbed the boarding pass from the security officer, looked at his own name on it, then looked up at her and said, “Cody Nichols.”

This prompted the full cavity search. He was wearing this gadget on his wrist that was the remote control to his Back-to-the-Future time machine, which the security officer immediately assumed was a bomb. She sent for backup.

Dylan was crying because Cody had poked him. I pleaded with him, “Dylan, just this one time, can you please, please, please just let it go?”

Dylan looked up at me with his chin quivering and tears streaming down his cheeks as he wailed, “But I can’t let it go ... I just caaaan’t.”

In the meantime, three people from security were waving the wand over Cody and it was beeping everywhere.

His pockets were full of all the trick stuff he’d bought at the magic shop. Security did not think these things were funny. They didn’t find humor in the pen that shocked them and they really didn’t appreciate the leaking fountain pen.

I thought I was going to go into full cardiac arrest. My heart was thumping like a rubber ball in the dryer.

We were the last ones to board and I’ve never been so happy to see one vacant middle seat.

“Where will I sit?” Dylan whined.

“With your father,” I said, remembering that in the rush to catch our plane, I completely forget to chew out my husband.

As I slipped into my seat, I let out a huge sigh. A look at my watch confirmed that I had indeed made it from one end of the airport to the other with three kids in less than five minutes.

“Now I know why they serve alcohol on these morning flights,” I thought to myself. I wondered what people would think if I ordered a glass of wine with a whiskey chaser.

A businessman in the seat next to me chuckled as he leaned over and said, “How does it feel to be on the Homeland Security list?”

Dona Nichols teaches journalism at San Jose State University and Evergreen Valley College and does stand-up comedy on the side at the Improv in downtown San Jose. She lives in Evergreen with her husband and three children.