Well, here we go again. Warning: this is not a warm and fuzzy.

So, I returned my rental car to Hertz without issue. My receipt was emailed to me within moments. The same thing at the hotel. No issues. Receipt was emailed to me right away and I was good to go. So far, so good. But then I went to the Delta counter in Pennsylvania to check my bag and print my boarding passes. Might you guess how many courteous employees were at the counter to facilitate that process? I’ll give you some brackets: It was less than 3, 2, or 1, but it was not a (-) number. That’s right. Good’ole 0. Zero. Let me say that again: zero!

Okay, I’m a nice guy, kind of on the quiet side, military, not one for small talk, and just want folks to be present and ready when that’s their job. Is that too much to ask? Finally, I walked over to the United counter.

“Ma’am. I’m sorry to bother you, but do you happen to know if there are any Delta folks around? I would like to check my military bag.”

“Oh, they’re understaffed. They don’t have anyone here right now,” she replied.

Um, what? Am I living in an alternate universe presided over by Mr. Bumblefart? (Sorry, I have these interior dialogues in order not to throat punch some people.)

“Since you’re military, you may try going upstairs to TSA PreCheck, and they’ll check it for you,” she said.

“Okay. Thank you, ma’am.”

I took the escalator upstairs, pulled out my military ID card, my boarding passes (I was able to print these via the kiosk, without a Delta employee), and placed my duffel to be checked in the gray bin, and my small ruck in another, and proceeded through the scanner.

My duffel got stopped by the gaggle of women staring at the monitor. There were six–yes, six!!!–women in blue TSA shirts, staring at the monitor as if I were a Columbian smuggler with 6 kilos of cocaine in my bag.

The man behind me was incensed. “What is this?” he exclaimed. “How many women does it take to do this? I have a flight!”

I felt bad for him, too, but I kept saying to myself, “Okay, surely, someone will step up and take charge, someone who knows what he is doing.”

But that didn’t happen. And it still didn’t happen. And it still didn’t happen.

I began to think the man behind me was going to remove his loafers from his feet and start lauching salvos at the TSA women.

But the six of them just kept staring at the monitor that revealed the contents of my duffel, as if I had a nest of cobras inside that might spring out like Medusa’s sons from her neck.

We waited, and waited, and waited. The anger at the TSA counters by the travelers was palpable.

Fiinally, a woman dared–can you believe it?–to actually talk to me, ask me if it was my duffel, and when I said yes, she unzipped my duffel. “Sir,” she said, “These shampoo and conditioner bottles are too big. Would you like to check them or would you voluntarily abandon them?”

I almost lost my cookies.

The woman downstairs, since Delta employees were missing in action, told me to come upstairs to TSA and that TSA would check my military duffel. But nope, TSA said they couldn’t do that. That needed to be Delta. Well, you don’t say? Thanks for the insight. (Insert mental throat punch here.)

So here I am, without my shampoo and conditioner (oh, and my shaving cream, I forgot that was necessarily ‘voluntarily abandoned,’ too), with my military duffel beside me, and I’m sure I’ll get the hateful look if and when a Delta employee shows up when the plane arrives.

Does anyone else deal with this stuff, and also scratch his/her head and think, “Really? Are these the most-qualified applicants? These people?” At times like this, I appreciate my dogs more and more.