1st PlaceBritney Spears in Times of Terrorby Daniel JaegerTHE MUSIC SEEMED to be slightly more soothing than usual but maybe that was just my imagination. “No that’s a machine gun,” I joked to the old man who had noticed my guitar case and asked if I would be playing. The music stopped when the flight attendant in front of me turned around. “OK. That’s it. Come with me,” she snapped. I felt like I was caught cheating in junior high school and started to apologize for having made an inappropriate comment. First I thought she wanted to see if there was really a machine gun in my bag but apparently she wasn’t worried about that. On my way out of the plane I wondered if she was so strict because she was wearing a bun or if she was wearing a bun because she was so strict. I found out later that flight attendants with long hair have to wear a bun for safety reasons.The old man and his wife looked at me compassionately as I was escorted from the plane. However they felt about my joke, they sure thought I didn’t deserve this. The flight attendant handed me over to a more important looking man with badges on his shoulders who told me to wait in the gangway right outside the plane and asked me for my boarding pass. He took it and walked out of sight back in the lobby.While I was anxiously waiting with my guitar bag in my right hand and my little backpack in the left, I tried to imagine what would happen next. They would probably take me under arrest and start an investigation about former and possible future terrorist activities. Expecting my hand luggage to be searched, I thought about the latest issue of a German humor magazine called titanic that I had almost taken with me and that consisted entirely of jokes about terrorism. Happy that I had decided to leave it at home, I thought about how certain things can be perfectly appropriate in a particular magazine but not on a plane, especially not on a United Airlines flight. It somewhat made sense. For some reason I still expected them to check if my guitar was actually a machine gun but they seemed to have enough confidence in the security checks to believe it wasn’t necessary. I thought about how I could get ahold of Peter who was supposed to pick me up in Seattle at the airport and tell him that I got kicked off the plane and I don’t know when I would be there and that he probably could keep my car. Looking at the other passengers through the door I could see all kinds of expressions from disregard to: Why did this guy get kicked off the plane? Is he trouble? I’m sure the pure fact that I got on the plane again after being taken off made people more uncomfortable than my remark about the machine gun. The man came back again five minutes later and looked at me more seriously than the most serious German ever did, something I never had thought possible, and advised me in a very serious voice that this kind of joke was very inappropriate especially these days and that I should apologize to the old man that I was talking to. I told him that I had already done that and that the old man in my opinion didn’t seem offended nor had any of the other passengers complained to the flight attendant. He made me do it again anyway; I hadn’t expected anything different. When Iwalked back, the old man apologized for having started this brief conversation of ours that ended so unhappily for me. I said no, no, I’m the one who is sorry, it was a bad joke really, but he insisted that no, no, it was only a joke, and his wife smiled at me very compassionately again.Five weeks later I was watching TV and by zapping through I realized I had the choice between watching the news that the government just reintroduced military trials for foreign terrorist suspects or Britney Spears on MTV. I thought about the incident on the plane again and it appeared to me that, considering how many people prefer watching her over noticing the ongoing undermining of our civil rights, she is a far greater danger to democracy or to freedom than my jokes on a plane. I bet she doesn’t even have to pass security check at the airport. I also thought that she wouldn’t be appropriately dressed in Afghanistan even now that the Taliban don’t rule anymore. Not that I don’t like Britney, I’ve never met her personally and if I had the chance to be in her position I wouldn’t think twice about it. But at that particular moment I looked at her as a media-made distraction from reality. The next day I discovered a map on the Internet showing how to get across Manhattan without being spotted by surveillance cameras. It’s not easy. Suddenly it all made sense. Big Brother is making himself comfortable in a brave new world. We’re almost there. Anyway, now that I’m here I think I should after all take advantage of the remaining freedom that this country grants me. Tomorrow I’ll buy me a machine gun.2nd Place(Untitled)by Peter T.O. MeddickI OWE ALL OF YOU an apology.I managed to win a coveted position and lose it—twice—in this past year. Because of my inability to stimulate a national spending spree, I am on unemployment.I loathe being unemployed. I regret my nonproductivity. My self-esteem has eroded. I am becoming unbearable around the house, and I am rarely the man my new wife expected when we married on her father’s birthday on the last Saturday in July. The loss of self-worth drives my defensiveness. Agitated with little provocation or cause, I have embarrassed my wife with my recent uncharacteristic flashes of anger at Tully’s and at the dry cleaner. The folk at Kinko’s pissed me off long before I lost my job. Still, I shouldn’t let the little punk power trip get to me. Which reminds me, I owe an apology to the poor woman who was driving the wrong way by our gym. My wife does all the driving now. I am the passenger. It’s better that way.I’m not sure why Shaquille O’Neal irritates me. I’ve never met the chump. Yet, I possess this irrational and intense animosity for him. Mr. O’Neal, I apologize. Your money makes you a better man than me, and I envy you. You have a reported 54-inch waist—I don’t envy that.I regret I’ve never had a real, original political thought, but I have a sense of right and wrong, fair and unjust. My wife woke me before my alarm as the doors to asylum swung open in September. I admit I didn’t go to work that day. I was brushing my teeth when the first building collapsed. I apologize to those who have lost a relative or acquaintance to the mind-numbing acts of a band of freaks, because I am so very lucky to be so far removed. I intend no insult to those shaken by the inconceivable madness, but I cannot regret that my family and friends all went to sleep in their own beds that night. I apologize to every parent, child, wife, and friend of the men who took control of those airplanes and committed themselves to destroying all those people because I have an unqualified, fist-shaking anger at the incomprehensible maliciousness of their idiocy (beliefs, convictions). If my anger spills over and manifests itself as prejudice against and distrust of you and people who resemble your brothers, sons, and husbands, I am ashamed. For lack of an excuse, my behavior is predicated by an emotion that I haven’t completely confronted and controlled. Please forgive me, I promise to concentrate upon hiding my disdain. It wouldn’t be polite. For those of you wondering, I don’t have that toothbrush anymore. I replaced it because it was worn.I suppose that’s why I’m looking for atonement. Life and time are hand in hand chasing the horizon. I figured the two would stop, or at least pause, to allow for us . . . me to count to three before marching ahead once again. Imagine my surprise; I didn’t expect to observe the worn bristles, acknowledge the need for a replacement, write the addition to a shopping list, and purchase a new toothbrush. I managed this in the wake of a 10-year college reunion, unemployment, a wedding, a man-made catastrophe, a second period of unemployment, and the holidays.What’s more, yesterday I made a dentist’s appointment. I haven’t been in three years. At my last appointment back in my hometown, the dentist discovered a bump on my tongue that he found suspect and a cause for concern. I couldn’t afford the surgery then, and I’ve worried ever since. I met my wife three weeks later at a chili cook-off during the final game of the NBA Championship Series. Supposedly Jordan was playing his final game. I wish I could tell you, but I have no idea. She was a complete distraction. The idea of losing the use of my tongue due to surgery during the initial stages of dating my supersexy wife was absolutely out of the question. Now on her insurance, I’ve been meaning to make an appointment since the wedding.Yesterday, I was watching the roundup of the previous day’s sporting events. When the segment about Mr. O’Neal’s basketball game was introduced, I turned off the television, stood from the couch, and called the dentist’s office to make an appointment. I feel bad because he agitates me, but I owe Mr. O’Neal my appreciation for unwittingly making the appointment.I feel guilty because I didn’t get a job today. Instead, I wrote this. It’s unfortunate that the restoration of my self-esteem is intertwined with the publication of this piece. My pride will suffer another blow when it is rejected. I’ve done this before; I know how it ends. But right now, at this very instant as I am writing this, I am a whole, good, happy man with a wife reading a book on the couch. She married me for a reason, not because of my job. And in this instant, I have hope. I appreciate that this moment of hope is a simple twinkle against the slipping darkness of unemployment. If this little bubble of hope can rise through all the compounded crap of anger, monotony and self-pity, it’s worth waking up tomorrow at least to see if I still can. Why? Because turkey tastes the same, my nephews scream, run or waddle, fall, and cry as they have for over a year. So, in this instant, it seems to me that no matter where we are the grass is just as green, the sea is just as deep, and the sky is just as blue here as there. If this is the case, then a personal note to Mr. O’Neal: Remember to floss, and all your money will never magically endow you with class.I am sorry, pardon me.