Isreal Security, USA Insecurity

 Security at the Tel Aviv airport:

"How long have you been traveling?"

"Three months."

"What countries did you visit before Israel?"

"The Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Greece, Egypt and Jordan." 

"Have you ever been to Israel  before?"

"I passed through on my way to Jordan about a week ago."

"Where are all of your belongings?"

"In this bag."

"How did you manage to travel for three months with one small bag?"

"I wore the same clothes everyday."

She escorts me to a different x-ray machine with a new security guy.

He asks me to take out my liquids and then he says,"dkjfkasjdk kjklj lkjsd kjkjlkad."

"What?"

"It means welcome. You don't speak Arabic?"

Do I look like I speak Arabic?

"No."

He sifts through the contents of my bag. Then I'm taken to a secluded room and felt up by a woman who looks 16. If I wasn't extremely exhausted I would find this amusing. What part of my Red Sea t-shirt screams "terrorist!"?

Immigration at Philadelphia International Airport:

"Where are you coming from today?"

"Tel Aviv, Israel."

"What were you doing in Israel?"

"Traveling."

He's flipping through my passport.

"I see that you've been to Cambodia."

"That was earlier this year. A different trip."

"And Vietnam?"

I nod. Same, same.

"What do you do?"

"I'm an English teacher." ha....ha ha.

"Where do you teach?"

"I taught in Korea last year."

He returns to the first page of my passport.

"This photo does not look like you."

"I know, I look like a serial killer."

"Do you have another form of ID?"

Exhale. "Yeah."

I feel a long line of US citizens glaring at me as I fumble to find my driver's license.

"When's your birthday?"

"January 25."

"Where were you born?"

"Darwin, Ohio."

"What hospital?"

"Uhhh, I wasn't born in a hospital. I was born at home."

The midwife birthing convinces him enough to proceed.

"You've had pages added to your passport...but...I can't find a free section to stamp." His voice is, again, slightly suspicious.

He spots a small, empty space next to my Ecuadorian visa. He's satisfied even though only half of the US stamp makes the page.

He furrows his eyebrows one last time, then hands over my passport and driver's license.

"Sorry about the delay. They've been sending people through with different passports to check on us."

Right.

"No problem."