FlyClear - Get Through Those Security Lines Quick!

When you’re at Denver International, you’d best have all your little duckies in a row and get there plenty of time before boarding. Walking through security there is like walking through a maze.

Did you know that you can Fly Clear? Clear has come to major airports -and you can fly through airport security! For a small annual fee, you can sign up, skip the lines, and get in and out of security in a flash. Last October, I signed up for this service. They do a background check, make sure all your little duckies are in a row, and you're in. I came home, and a couple of days later, I had my Clear security card waiting for me in my mailbox.

I flashed it at ThatManILove. Here’s how it went from there…

TMIL: What did you have to give up to get that?
Janie: What do you mean?
TMIL: Fingerprints? What?
Janie: Oh…ummm…fingerprints. And…umm…pictures of my irises. (His eyebrows go up past his hairline - and that's a ways!) And...ummm... copies of my passport and drivers license. (No. Hell, no. I didn't even tell him I paid for the privilege of giving that stuff away.)
TMIL: Girl. You’re in the system now. Did they put a microchip in your forehead?
Janie: No. God. I didn't even think about that. Shut it, please.

Visions of the end days and "666" flashed before my eyes. How could I have been so stupid?

Months pass.

We go to Denver. ThatManILove grabs a brochure for Clear and reads it. Decides to sign up and get hizownbadself “in the system”. When we go to the airport for our return flight, we get there 3 hours early just to sign up.

Here he is going through “the drill.”

We’re almost through when I pull the plug.

Janie: Just one more thing, honey. They've done your iris pictures, taken good shots of your fingerprints. Now. See this copier? They need an image of your bare butt.
TMIL: What?

I was teasing about that part. But not about the Clear Card. For the record…it took me 7 minutes to get through Denver security with my Clear Card. It took ThatManILove 18 minutes without his.

You go through the Clear line, put your card into the machine, an attendant double checks your i.d. and the card. Then, the uniformed attendant helps you unpack your laptops, etc., puts them in bins, and carries them for you - oh, yes, he does - up to the x-ray machine. All you have to do is follow the attendant. And, yes, if you happen to be wondering what happens next, the attendant politely steps in front of the line, secures a place for you, at the front of the line, making you first in a line of a million people, right at the entrance to the x-ray machine, puts your items on the roller, and steps back, after bidding you a good day.

Nobody gripes that you just major line-jumped, or anything. It almost makes you feel guilty.

Naaaaaaah. It doesn't. Pampered, yes. Guilty, no. And the whole time, ThatManILove is watching, and shaking his head in disbelief. And if ThatManILove wasn't a believer, he by golly is now.