Your prompt for JusJoJan 2019, January 11th is brought to you by M! Click here to find her last SoCS post and say hi while you’re there! M’s word for our prompt today is in SoCS style: “flew/flu/flue.” Use one, use them all, use them anywhere in your post or make one or all the theme of your post. Have fun!
I have to choose “flew” out of the three homophones on offer today. Geeky, I know, but I’m a pilot, so that’s what I do. I’m admitting straight out on the internet for everyone to see something that I rarely like to tell people in everyday conversations. It feels a bit like a confession, really, and usually, when I confess it, I have to do the penance of listening to every horrible thing that has ever happened to the person I told it to in an airport, airplane, or in a security line, and every horrible thing every airline they’ve ever flown on has done to them. I ususally tune out during these litanies and at the end of it I ask them, “So, what’s the best flight you ever took?”
Since this is SoCS (even though I’m behind and it’s really Tuesday!) I’m just going to take this opportunity to thank some people that rarely get thanked, least of all by me. I shall try harder in the future to thank them on a regular basis!
- The TSA. Yes, you heard me. T. S. A. I can’t imagine what sort of responses they get when they tell people what their job is. My own relationship with the organization as a whole is…good and bad, you could say. But what I need to say right now to all TSA agents is: THANK YOU FOR COMING TO WORK! No matter what political party you affiliate yourself with, I think we can all agree that the current shutdown which is holding hostage the salaries of countless “regular American” families who are now struggling to…what was it that our president said? “Make adjustments”? (Don’t get me started!) is absolutely ludicrous. One of the organizations deemed “necessary” is, of course, the TSA. They have to come to work even though they aren’t being paid right now, even though they may be struggling to pay bills until…whenever the millionaires that run our country decide to play nice with other and release their salaries. I can only assume that these agents are at work because they have some sort of higher moral compass than the folks in DC that are calling the shots right now. So Bravo, TSA. Without you guys, nobody would be flying anywhere right now. Thank you.
- The Air Traffic Controllers. These are the folks that we depend on to help us have situational awareness of where all the other planes in the sky are in relation to ourselves when we navigate around the big blue skies over our country. The paying public never sees them, so they are kind of invisible. However, they too are victims of the government shutdown. They have highly skilled and stressful jobs, and they are here at work even though they now have many added stresses in their lives. Thank you, ATC. You are the “Wind Beneath our Wings.
To sum up, if you are flying somewhere this week, take time to smile at a TSA agent and thank him or her for making it possible for you to fly. I know there are tons of other workers who are victims of the shutdown, but I have chosen to focus on these two organizations without whom I could never say, “I flew there.”
This post is part of Linda G. Hill’s “Just Jot it January.” Please click here to learn the rules and how to participate in the fun!
Forty, c'est Fantastique ! 
Great capture and I agree with you about the poor people who still work despite not being paid
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