The Trip (Pt 1, Airport Security)
Posted on | July 1, 2010 | Comments Off
She had gotten a bit of a late start that morning, unaware that she wasn’t as close to the airport as she thought she was. She thought she was staying “a lot closer” to the airport than her home, but apparently she was really only 15-20 minutes closer. In the scheme of things, this wasn’t a lot of time. Her Mother had taught her to always be early, and she usually was, but not on this morning.
She rushed into the terminal and arrived at the security checkpoint only to be told this was the wrong checkpoint and to head down to a different one to the left. Off she went, dragging her heavy carry on bags with her.
She arrived at the second checkpoint and showed the necessary identification. She then placed her laptop in its own bin, her shoes and jacket in another and the rest of her baggage onto the belt. She walked through the metal detector without a problem but saw that the TSA agent was having quite the puzzled face as he examined her large carry on bag.
The agent called over another and she was then asked to escort him to a table to search the bag and discuss some questionable items. She was to standby, but not touch anything while he was conducting his search. She looked at her watch and saw it was just about boarding time.
The TSA agent asked if there was anything sharp inside the bag. She of course replied no. He then motioned to a cooler and began to explain that oranges could not be brought….This is where she stopped him. She didn’t have oranges in the cooler. She had pork roll in the cooler. (For those of you who do not know what Taylor Ham aka pork roll is, it is shaped like a very plump sausage or roll (hence the name) and can be cut into thin slices and fried up for breakfast and is not sold in California, her destination. She was bringing some as a gift.) The agent seemed almost shocked and unzipped the cooler (after testing it with his little makeup remover looking swab that tests for explosive residue) and sure enough, pork roll. He said that sometimes the xray machine makes things look like other things. Apparently. He then swabbed the blue ice cooler thing just to make sure she wasn’t hiding any explosives with her pork roll.
After putting the cooler back together, he then wished to talked to her about some coins she had. Out came his swab again and she explained they were quarters for the laundry. He then asked why she didn’t just bring dollars. Anyone who knows what it’s like to do laundry in a pay machine knows the importance of quarters. Enough said. This guy was annoying and his smile was getting him no where. Just put my bag back together and let me race to the gate now please, she thought. He did explain that the quarters looked like crystals to the xray machine and that something could have been hidden within. This was a small coin purse. She could only imagine what someone must have hidden in a coin purse full of quarters to get her quarters inspected.
And here, after all of this, she was worried that the little baggy containing lichen and other nature items to hot glue to a birdhouse as a gift for Mother was going to show up looking like pot on the xray. Silly her.
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