My wife and I made plenty of irrational decisions in our
lives. For example, moving to Nashville, or trying to convince Miami drivers to
signal. But once we make irrational decisions, we deal with them very
competently. In contrast, there are plenty of people who handle any decision, rational
or irrational, most incompetently. Due to our Seasonal Irrational Decision Disorder
(SIDD), Ora and I encountered many of these people this summer.
It all started when we decided to help
our son and his wife move to a better place in New York City. That would allow
our son and his wife to finally leave the ridiculously expensive and
ludicrously small rental they were sharing with some insects in the Lower East
Side. My competent wife Ora turned her office at home in Miami into logistics
central and handled most aspects of the move. She ably dealt with real estate
agents, contractors, movers, and utility companies. I pitched in by calling the
cable company in New York. This is a company that starts with V and rhymes with
horizon, but I am afraid to identify it due to fear of reprisals.
To make life easier, I put on
automatic payment everything: car lease, credit card, Comcast, AT&T, life
insurance, pool service, condo fees, bribes to city officials, everything. So
it was only natural that I would want to do the same with Verizon (Oops). I
clicked on one of the 17 emails I had received from them to set up automatic
pay. After I completed the registration process for a new user, it told me that
I already had an online account, which I never set up. As a good detective, I
thought that the system perhaps still linked the new account number to the old
account number, which was in our son’s name, so I asked our son for his
username and password, which he provided, which Verizon (what the heck),
rejected. What followed was a Kafkaesque interminable loop of the system asking
me security questions:
·
Name of my elementary school
·
Name of my first pet
·
My mother’s maiden name
·
Year in which the Ottoman empire was founded by
Oghuz Turks
Once I entered what I thought were
correct answers, I eagerly waited for the system to send me the username or
password, but no, instead, I kept getting messages, in large red font, to the
effect that: “the combination of your email, answers, or attitude is
incorrect.” The cortisol I secreted during this episode was enough to create a nuclear
stress bomb, which I plan to detonate next time a Verizon rep says “is there
anything else we can do for you today.” But wait, once I solved the automatic
pay problem I had to contend with incompetent technicians who had to come to
the new place no less than four times to get the internet to work.
But before all of this took place,
Ora and I had to get to New York from Miami, which of course entailed a stop at
MIA. This is where irrational and incompetent blended seamlessly and
deliciously. After we obtained our boarding passes and sent our luggage we
headed for security. But before you meet a TSA agent, you must show your
boarding passes to an official directing traffic at the security lines. One
line was for TSA pre-check passengers, one for wheelchair users, and one for
the masses. Ora was both TSA pre-check and wheelchair user, which completely
puzzled the lady directing traffic. I couldn’t tell whether her decision was
irrational, incompetent, or both, but she sent Ora to the TSA pre-check, which
had a very long line up, almost as long as the regular line. Given that Ora
goes through a special search anyways because she uses a scooter, I could not
understand the logic behind sending us to a long line up when the wheelchair
line was completely empty. When I approached her and asked if we could use the
wheelchair line, she said that we are TSA pre-check, to which I replied that my
wife also uses a scooter and it would be much faster to go through a line that was
empty. She seemed confused but eventually let us use the wheelchair line.
It is possible that there is some
logic behind her decision that completely escapes me, so before I turn into a complete
judgmental tool, let’s explore her thinking. Some options for her reasoning:
1.
“I’m facing two people. Both with TSA pre-check,
but only one with wheelchair. Two is bigger than one, so I need to send them to
the pre-check line.” Somewhat rational, but incompetent.
2.
“One is in a wheelchair, but both have TSA pre-check.
The line for pre-check is long; the line for wheelchairs is empty. I will send
them to pre-check.” Irrational, incompetent, and, of course, Anti-Semitic.
3.
“The lady uses a scooter. The line for
wheelchairs is empty. She cannot use her pre-check anyways because she goes
through a special search. She will be better off going through the wheelchair
line. But since she lives in Miami, she is probably faking her disability, like
most people in Miami, just to get a handicap parking permit, like my aunt Sofia,
my cousin Lourdes, and my uncle Panchito. I bet a hundred dollars that she is
faking the disability. In fact, she reminds me of my aunt Sofia. Oh, poor auntie Sofia. I feel for her, but
she is such a liar. I will show this Prilleltensky couple! Pre-check.”
