I was not TSA's friend this morning
Mom dropped me of at our Northwest Arkansas XNA airport this morning at 5am. 6:10 flight. Plenty of time.
I step up to security,
DL and BP, with NP. LOL
Statement: I respect and appreciate TSA. They sit there all day, boring, and keep the knives and guns off the planes. I like that.
Set my rolling bag on the x-ray. Belt off, laptop out of backpack, iPhone rides with it's MacBook buddy through the scary X-Ray Machine. I'm looking like a 13-year-old world traveler right about now.
Smile at Mr. Doorway to Doom, and one foot in.... 'WHOA! Need to see your boarding pass, sir'.
I smile as my boarding pass waves goodbye from inside my backpack from inside the X-Ray. It's on the freedom side. 'Martha this kid needs a boarding pass that already went through'.
They pull my backpack out and back to the back of the line, we're starting over, while my rolling back slides down the freedom slide, looking good.
I get the boarding pass, and my backpack gets on round 2 to go meet it's rolling bag and laptop buddies on the freedom side.
One foot in 'SIR I'm going to need you to remove your shoes'. Oops, no problem. Let me just hop in the end of the line here. Rolling bag, iPhone, MacBook and Backpack are all looking pretty good on the freedom side. Shoes go in. I go thru. Smile.
Robert comes out from behind conveyer belt, "good, what took you so long? we've got to take everything out of your rolling bag.
That's fine. They didn't like my Canon Speedlight Flash too much. That's reasonable. I can handle one more quick screening.
Martha comes over. Sir, now that Robert's got your rolling bag taken care of, I'm going to need you to empty your backpack there. hmm? ok.
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OK, at any given time, I have a knife in my back pocket, a knife in my backpack, and a knife strapped to my flashlight. But no worries, I know you can't fly with knives!
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What's wrong with my backpack, Martha? "Sir you can't fly with a 4" knife in your backpack. Knife #2 managed to slip past my knife check at the house, but not past TSA. They're good at finding knives.
They set my knife aside, and run my backpack again. Sir, there is a second large metal object in your bag I'm going to need you to remove. Flashlight, we're good. Run it again. Sir, we're showing a large block of metal over in the side pocket here. Canon SD750, we're fine. Run it again.
My poor Jansport Backpack has been pumped with more radiation than a rod of Uranium right about now.
My PW'd Speedlight rolling bag pukes out of the machine, good to go there. One down.
They don't like my Sony V600 headphones either, Phillip. But, they decide to let me board, but they like my knife and think it should stay with them.
I love that knife.
Don't worry, there is a girl about 4 inches from the Knife Knabbers that would LOVE to sell me a knife-sized envelope for $5. I package it up and address it to Bentonville. TSA says they'll put it in the mail for me... Saturday? DAAAANG.
If they drop it in the mail this Saturday, and it's going to Bentonville, it will arrive Monday morning, merely hours after I arrive back in Arkadelphia, AR.
ELL Oh ELL
But, I still love TSA. They do good work, and they did a great job of keeping a knifing photographer from running loose.