September 19, 2000: IBAB Accidentally Founded
This man is a Certified Public Accountant. He is also an airport
bum. He is the owner and pilot of the fine airplane in the photo,
as well as another, even better airplane (not in the photo).
But is he a shiftless vagrant? We can't tell. Neither could some
self-appointed busybody who one day decided anyway to challenge our
owner/pilot's presence at the airport. O/P returned the volley by
challenging the challenger's authority to police the place. The
situation rapidly got more and more confusing as it became less and
less clear who was challenging whom about what. By all accounts,
nobody was injured in the exchange.
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Our hero realized following this little encounter that anyone silly
enough to wander around playing airport cop could be easily fooled
by some official-looking credentials. So he began carrying a fake
photo ID card, and inadvertently became the very first member of
IBAB.
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The IBAB photo ID proved remarkably effective against security officer
wannabes. When the word got out, other airport bums quite naturally
sought protection for themselves, and a small group of dedicated bums
obtained cards similar to the original. Suddenly, with all these bums
carrying around cards identifying themselves as members of a fictitious
organization, it was no longer fictitious! So they named the real
organization after the fake one on the ID cards, appointed their dogs to all the offices of authority,
and went back to fooling with their airplanes.
IBAB grew steadily, with just a couple of glitches in the very
beginning. First, there were two or three bums who attempted to
bribe their way into the group. These folks were reminded of the
brotherhood's lofty and noble ideals (even though there aren't
any), and did not cause any trouble after that.
Then there was one instance of someone trying to use a forged IBAB
ID card bearing Alex Trebek's picture. It would seem that such a
forgery would be useful only to Mr. Trebek himself, but nobody can
say for sure. The counterfeit card only surfaced once, and whoever
flashed it remains at large.
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