(Untitled)
I just spent the past hour or so unpacking my small handbag. How can that be, you ask? Unfortunately, that's classified, but I spent the time thinking about how it's our patriotic duty as Americans to spend our time imagining worst-case scenarios.
( Cut for blatant fear-mongering. )
( Cut for blatant fear-mongering. )
The first time I went through security at Will Rogers Airport in Oklahoma City, I was stopped while security re-X-rayed my bag and then searched it. They found the paint scraper (which I'd put on top, figuring it'd be an issue); I identified it, and they let me go through with it.
(I'd note that, if swung, such a tool would make one hell of a bludgeon, but its blades aren't particularly sharp. Of course, they recently started allowing nail clippers and scissors on planes again, so there you go.)
My flight was bumped for mechanical problems, and I had to go back to the ticket counter to re-book. The second time I went through security, they stopped me, re-X-rayed my bag, and told me that I could not take the scraper on the plane. I argued with them; what, precisely, had changed in the last hour that now made the tool a threat to life and property? They finally relented.
That second flight was delayed for hours on the tarmac by weather in Dallas; we eventually went back to the gate for refueling, and while there I went back out front to buy dinner. On my third trip through security, the staff tossed my bag upside-down onto the conveyor. This did a number on the fruit pies my grandmother had made for me, but it put the scraper at the bottom of the pile; they never saw, or at least never commented on it.
Three runs of the same person with the same tool in the same bag at the same airport. Three different results. Suffice to say I was not heartened by the state of present TSA procedure.
Sorry about the clothes, and even more sorry about the preserves...
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment