Told by his grade school teacher that he needed to present a note from his mother to explain the previous day's absence, little Ronnie obliged – with an excuse written on lined paper in crayon in big block letters and signed “Mom.”
Needless to say, the teacher's suspicions were aroused and she proceeded to question the authenticity of the dubious document presented to her by the wily child.
Fast forward a couple of decades and we have Houston attorney Ronald Tigner, Esq., trying to get on an airplane with an illegible boarding pass and meeting resistance from skeptical airline employees.
The Tigner contretemps occurred on July 21, 2015 at Bush Intercontinental Airport – and Tigner now is suing United Airlines and two of its employees for more than $1 million in damages in compensation for the treatment he allegedly received at the time.
Tigner claims that he received an illegible boarding pass and that United representatives refused to reprint it for him, that TSA agents refused to let him pass through the security checkpoint because of the illegible pass, and that he was obliged to return to the ticketing area, where two United employees responded to his request for a new pass by laughing and cursing at him and causing him injury.
We haven't heard the airline's version of the incident, but there certainly seems to be more to the story than Tigner lets on, and there's no denying that an illegible boarding pass is likely to elicit unfriendly reactions from airline and security personnel.
Tigner, of course, insists that he did nothing to provoke the abusive response he claims to have received from the two United employees, but we can't help thinking that his account of the events in 2015 might seem more credible if it was corroborated by a note from his mother.