Florida, FEMA, And Another F Word

I imagine that most people expected my first post-marriage artie’cle to be about marriage. Perhaps I’ll get to that later. I really just want to share about my experiences traveling around the central/southern Florida region. It’s like Jack Kerouac’s On the Road without Beatniks or Che’s Motorcycle Diaries without a motorcycle.

The first stop on this journey is Sebring, Florida, home of the Sebring International Raceway. Many people who have been to Sebring, refer to the city as Se-boring instead. And with good reason. My apologies to anyone who may be reading this and who may be from Sebring. Not apologies because I am about to bash your hometown, but apologies because you had to live there. The city is nothing other than a raceway and lots of elderly, nay, old people who are very rude. No Southern Hospitality here. Heck, there is nothing southern about the place. Everyone in Sebring is from New York or New Jersey. Despite the rudeness of the Sebring populace, the all time low of the trip was when one of the emergency management officials from Highlands County asked where DeSoto County was located. Sadly we had to show them on the map where an adjacent (as in the counties touch each other) county is located.

Not long after my excursion to Sebring, Florida, I was “voluntold” to go to Orlando to do training for several of the people at FEMA’s long-term recovery office. Prior to traveling down, they asked what kind of computers were needed for the training. Laptops with Windows XP pro and 1GB RAM were requested. When I arrived to set up, I was pleased to see new looking laptops with little stickers that say “designed for Windows XP” on them. Of course when I booted them up, it was windows 2000 that showed up on the screen. And 512 mb of RAM. Maybe they thought I wouldn’t notice. At least they were there and didn’t show up a week after the training was completed.

Anyway, the training goes well with no major snafu’s. But, as I leave for the day, I am stopped by a security guard. Think of this as Department of Homeland Security’s Security. In broken English (on par with typical tech support out-sourced to India) I am asked whether I have a laptop. I say, “yes.” Then he says he needs my paper. I tell him that I do not have any paper. He insists that I have paper. I tell him that I only have the laptop. He says that he needs to see my white or pink paper for the laptop. I tell him that I do not work for FEMA, that I work for the State of Florida (which he should have known since he checked my State of Florida Identification card as well as the fact that I was wearing a polo shirt with the words “Florida State Emergency Response Team” on it.) Not being able to produce the desired sheet of paper, he calls for an additional security guard and detains me until the other guard arrives.

At this point I should mention that I have been there for almost two days and have entered and left the premises and gone through security five times before being stopped for this. When the second guard arrives, I am escorted to a small room where a lady asks me about the laptop. I tell her that I am a State Employee, that I am wearing a shirt from the State of Florida, that I have my State of Florida badge hanging from my neck, that I am wearing a State of Florida issued Cell Phone and Pager, and that my laptop, which is State of Florida issued says “State of Florida Department of Community Affairs” on the property tag. She then asks me if it is a FEMA laptop or a personal laptop. I reiterate that it is neither; it is a State of Florida issued laptop. Not knowing what to do, she gives me a white sheet of paper and tells me to keep it with my personal property laptop. To avoid being detained any longer, I agree to do so. As I leave, I am stopped again by security. They ask if I have a laptop. I say that I do, but present the white sheet of paper this time. The security guard then tells me that he cannot find the FEMA property tag on the laptop. I show him the tag that says Property of the State of Florida Department of Community Affairs.” I end up telling him that it is personal property registered with FEMA. Not knowing what to do, he then tells me that I can leave.

So, all of those FEMA jokes you may hear…they are all true.