Working Class Man Experiences TSA Disaster, Nearly Suffers Total Meltdown

A fisherman always recognizes another fisherman in the middle of a storm.

That was a sentence I heard this past Thursday night, and little did I know how much it would cut to the soul in the coming days.

As I'm sure the avid YouTube viewers noticed, I have been fairly off the grid since Wednesday night. I really can't get into very many details at this moment. Hell, maybe I won't ever get into it, but as some speculated, I was certainly "some distance from Tehran."

I left my home early Thursday with a hand-picked squad bound for an undisclosed location in Louisiana. Without divulging information that would risk members of the United States government and national security(and not in the ways you might think!), it was a great time the entire time I was in the state.

I absolutely loved it. Great people, great food, great times and great energy. Little did I know disaster was looming on the horizon.

The disaster even the best of us can't defeat.

This is the face of a man who has no idea what is coming. (Credit: David Hookstead)

TSA nightmare unfolds in shocking fashion.

I was (notice the past tense) scheduled to fly out of Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport at 10:00 am on Sunday morning.

Easy enough. I know how to work the airport game. Blend in, don't draw attention to yourself, maybe get a little nicotine kick to get things rolling, grab a beer at the airport bar and keep it moving.

Now, for those of you who might not know, our inefficient and wildly dumb government is currently experiencing a partial shutdown that has impacted TSA employees being paid. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that when people aren't paid to work, then they're going to find excuses to not show up.

Enter MSY over this past weekend.

I got to the airport three hours prior to my flight. Three hours! I was ready for the TSA situation to be poor. It wasn't poor.

It was a nightmare. I showed up and by the time I arrived, the security line wrapped through multiple levels of the parking garage.

It was evident from the jump that I was in serious risk of not making my 10:00 am flight. That turned out to be the case.

The wait in security took nearly five hours, and then I got hit with a bombshell from airport staff:

TSA wouldn't let me pass with an expired boarding pass if my flight had already left.

My plan was to get through TSA, visit the American Airlines counter and figure out something. Apparently, that's not allowed. I guess we can thank Osama bin Laden for that one.

At one point, I considered if we should just say screw it and charter a flight out of this hellhole. No go. Couldn't be done. Another loss for the working-class men.

Instead, I pull up my phone and start looking for literally any ticket I can find. The winner? A $2,000 flight on Delta to a completely different airport than DCA with a three-hour layover.

I'd rather be in Gitmo than dealing with this nonsense. How is our government so bad at literally everything that an airport has five-hour wait times, no clear strategy to speed things up, and then I'm told I have to have an updated ticket to pass through?

It's stunning. What the hell are my tax dollars paying for?

The TSA situation at the New Orleans airport was a nightmare on Sunday. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz / AFP via Getty Images)

Don't worry. The horror show isn't over just yet. I finally get to the security checkpoint, and my simple luggage case is treated like the largest national security concern in the entire country.

What's in it?

A couple of shirts, a pair of blue jeans, underwear and socks. Literally not one other thing. Not one. Yet, it had to go through multiple screenings. Simply unreal.

I don't expect much in life. I really don't. I grew up in the harsh winters of Wisconsin. You grow up quick when you grow up in the world I did. That's what being a working class man is all about.

However, it's amazing how my government never fails to prove new ways to ruin my day. I was ready to wait three hours in security. I accepted that. What happened on Sunday should be illegal by Geneva Convention standards.

Missed my flight, had to waste $2,000 on a flight I didn't want and shouldn't have ever needed and most importantly, my time was wasted. I'm not kidding when I say the parking garage looked like the lifeboat scene in "Titanic." It borderline felt like the situation could unravel at any moment. Fortunately, what mental strength I had left held the situation together. Not just for me. For everyone. You never know when you'll be pressed into a leadership position. It just sometimes happens. I made eye contact with a few fellow travelers, and without saying a word, we said it all. The amount of pure frustration was biblical.

Fishermen recognizing other fishermen in the storm.

It's time to get our TSA working at a functional level. (Photo by Bob Riha Jr./Getty Images)

Someone with some actual power find a way to get the TSA paid and our airports functioning at a level that doesn't resemble the Third World. It really shouldn't be this hard. Let me know your thoughts at David.Hookstead@outkick.com.