Three of our kids come home from Denver today. They’ve been visiting our oldest friends for the last week. We are thankful the high altitude did not cause them to lose their wits and forget their way home.
The 14 and 16 y.o. had gotten through security when the TSA employee stopped the 23 y.o. and looked at a print out he had. He asked the man behind her if he was her daddy.
Jenny interrupted and said, “No, he’s not my dad and we aren’t together. I am traveling with my two younger siblings who already went through, and I’m the oldest and need to be with them.”
The two youngest are most often mistaken for being much older than they are, mainly because of the height on the baby (six feet and still unfolding) and the styling preferences of the second youngest- still modest, but more trendy.
TSA security guard: “Oh, really?” Then he called two more TSA agents over and consulted them. He though our daughter looked like this missing child, who is ten or eleven years old.
I will say in his defense that:
A. Jenny reports that he was old
B. Maybe it was a grainy photocopy
C. The missing child and Jenny have very similar noses, *really* similar. (Otherwise not so much in the resemblance department, and I wouldn’t have thought “That child looks like my Jenny” unless I was looking for similarities- hard. Pip had already seen the picture, and she hadn’t noticed any resemblance)
D. Their hair is similar in that both have long hair somewhere in the light brown with some blonde streaks shade.
E. Both wear glasses.
And I will add that if they are going to make a mistake in a case like this, I’d rather it was in this direction than otherwise, and possibly an elderly security guard is emotionally choked up over every parent’s worst nightmare so his judgment was flawed and it didn’t occur to him to ask for I.D. or the younger siblings. Moving on:
Second security agent looks over the picture, looks at our Jenny, and then says, “Well, yes, they do look similar, but there is a definite age difference here. The missing child is only ten, and this girl is 13, 14, or 15 years old.” Still no request for picture I.D.
Jenny: “No, I am 23 years old, and I need to go be with my minor siblings.”
Third security guard finally speaks up: “Yeah, I was gonna say 24, but I didn’t want speak up.” Still no request for picture I.D.
First guy leaves, apparently rather grumpily, because the other two apologized for their ‘militant co-worker,’ and Jenny was permitted to rejoin her siblings, which I am sure relieved the poor man behind her who had been asked if he was her daddy.
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I have 5 children ages 14, 8, 6,4 and 2. I took them all to a store a month ago and a woman was certain I was not old enough to be the parent of my 4 youngest children (ages 2 to 8yo) so her next assumption was that my 14 year old daughter looked old enough to be the mother of them! LOL She thinks I look to young but my 14 year old daughter looks older than me! In her defense, I do look a lot younger than I am. Strange that they did not ask for a picture ID. Hmmmm……
Maybe it was the altitude.
She’ll enjoy looking younger later. I’m glad they’re taking a careful look at everyone to try and find this little girl. I pray they find her and she’s okay. Once when I was maybe 22, they told me that I couldn’t go visit a friend in the hospital because they didn’t admit kids under 12. I did show my driver’s license and got to go up. I was highly offended at the time, but now that I’m 48 I appreciate being thought younger than I am. I encourage it.
When I was 18, someone thought my 14-year-old sister and I were twins, which offended me.
These days, I also, like you, appreciate being thought younger than I am. A phone repairman came to our house today after I’d requested repair service this morning. When I answered the door, he identified himself and told me, “Your folks called for service this morning.”
That 50th birthday I had last month doesn’t seem so traumatic now.