Lucky, Privileged or Blessed?

It’s July of 2018 and I’m on a project for a cannabis brand based out of Seattle. I’m on the road to Boston to conduct some focus groups among recreational and medicinal users of marijuana, my client wants to know about the occasions that spark the motivation to get high.

I’m packing a bit of weed for myself for the journey which is nothing out of the ordinary. I usually need a bit of a sleep aid and a safety blanket; pick your excuse, I’ve always got some green on me no matter where I’m going. Due to a brazen stop-off in Wisconsin to vacation with my family during this freelance project, I’m headed to Boston by way of Minneapolis, from a small airport in Wisconsin called Rhinelander-Oneida. I’d describe it as quaint and idyllic, but if you remember the TV show “Wings” from the 1990s, this airport seemed like the set.

In my bag are several glass jars of fig jam. My mother made it, and I’m taking it home. Also, three glass jars containing cannabis flower. One weed jar is empty, and I couldn’t really tell you why I kept it. Unlike the fig jam, two of the weed jars are darkened, like a brown beer bottle color, so you can’t see what’s in them. One is a miniature clear glass jar; transparent, with only a gram of premium indoor Kush. The two dark jars are heavily branded and labeled, the clear one is has a subtle brand imprint on it’s lid. I’m an old pro at traveling with weed, I typically don’t do much more than stuff it in my running shoe, or add it to my bathroom toiletries bag, the items in it are TSA compliant and I always readily drop it in the bin for easy inspection.

Today I get picked for a search, based on something they see on their monitor. The fig jams are first to be found, quickly confiscated with a discussion about their contents, their sizes, so gigantic! I played it up, chatting with the white lady TSA agent in her late fifties, maybe early sixties. She wore black rimmed thick glasses and sensible, cushy shoes like a nurse. I make solid eye contact and mourn the loss of my mother’s homemade fig jams, encouraging her to enjoy them if she’s allowed to keep items they take from passengers.

Unlabeled, full of fig jam, now on the stainless steel counter in the gallon sized zip-lock bags. I ask if she wants me to re-pack. She says “in just a minute.” She keeps digging, saying there are  other darks spots she can’t see through on the monitor.

She fingers her way into my cosmetic bag, where the weed is. She first notices the empty jar, and spends about 20 seconds rolling it to and fro, reading the label. I want to say “that’s empty” but I keep my lips sealed, hands jammed into my pockets.

She unearths the clear miniature jar, which contains a small amount of white crystal coated bud of a marijuana flower. She puts it back rather quickly, tucked into my clothes and tries to make eye contact with me, but my eyes dart to the left. I turn my head shamefully acting like it wasn’t me. (A well-rehearsed role.) She continues to dig and after not turning up anything else and likely solid knowledge she is about to let me pass with an allowable amount of controversial medicinal contraband, she finally asks if I’d like to repack my bag.

She thanks me for my patience.

But we’re not done, yet. Thirty minutes later, while I am still waiting to board my plane with only about 45 fellow passengers, she approaches me again. This time with her supervisor next to her. She asks if she can search my bag again. My heart sinks and my stomach flips.

“Do I have a choice?” I ask, as politely as I can.

She explains that she’s lost her TSA badge, and she thinks it came off inside my bag and that I repacked it accidentally. I do not argue and watch wearily as she re-opens the bag and lets her hands do the searching again. When it is clear that her badge is not in my bag, she allows me to re-zip it and go on my way. The plane is now boarding, thankfully. She has not found her badge, but I have just gotten my weed past her not once, but twice.

Am I blessed or am I blessed…