While on my honeymoon in Hawaii (I know start hating me now you cold-lovin’, snow-gettin’ Northeasterners) my wife of less than 3 days was starting to regret her decision to marry me (there’s a surprise as I fear pants) because I was apparently a terrorist. Yes me, your old pal, Subdivisions, a terrorist.

While the gentleman at the security counter was quite polite about things, I must admit that every time a new “supervisor” joined him at his post and subsequently went away to the “back” to see what the problem was, I grew more nervous.

I have come to find out that someone with the same name as me and a birthday close enough to mine to seem suspicious was on the TSA “do not fly” list. When I inquired how I could be mistaken for a terrorist given my fine upstanding nature a decent member of my community (no comments from the peanut gallery) they told me it must be a case of “mistaken identity.”

This is the technical term for “we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground” for those of you playing at home. Alas, I asked what I could do to prove I’m not a terrorist and I was actually given helpful advice. Shocking!

I was instructed to send an e-mail to:

TSA-ContactCenter@dhs.gov

and include the following pertinent info:

Full Name

Date of Birth

Telephone #

Mailing Address

and

E-mail address

It would take 45-60 days to remove me but once I was off, Friendly Skies here I come! Suffice to say I had no trouble convincing them I wasn’t the guy they were looking for (don’t know if it was the straw hat that gave it away or what) but suffice to say I wanted to share this helpful tip and let all of you terrorists and wanna bee’s out there that you can get yourself off the list by a simple e-mail.

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