Your TSA Horror Stories, please!

[Caractacus_Potts]

Not TSA: A few months after 9/11 I went to a small but still international airport to pick up my parents. I was wandering around trying to figure out where my parents would be disembarking from when I guess I made a wrong turn because next thing I know a national guardsman is pointing a machine gun at me and yelling at me to back off. (Oddly enough, that was the second time in my life I had someone pointing a machine gun at me).

TSA: I've been to Jamaica four times. The first three times were a breeze but I guess I must have looked fierce the fourth time. At the first airport check in (I had a connecting flight) I was pulled aside, searched, my carry-on was searched, my hands were dusted for explosives, various items in my carry-on were dusted for explosives and various items were removed and thrown out (seemingly at random to me). At the second airport check in I was again pulled aside and searched (although this time not dusted for explosives). There was a five to ten minute debate over my travel size container of Solarcaine. I was finally told that if I had a sunburn they would consider it medicine and would let me keep it but since I did not currently have a sun burn it was NOT medicine and they would have to throw it away. The fact that I was a pale Northerner going to the Caribbean did not factor into the equation.

Oh, also when I got to Jamaica and unpacked I found a note from the TSA letting me know that they had also gone through my checked bag.

[Dreamstalker]

My mom has gotten pulled aside for 'random' searches every time she's flown to Florida. She's related to me that she's always dressed 'Florida-like'--sandals, floppy hat, sundress--while swarthy guys in camo pants were ignored.

[Pixilated]

This happened within a year or so of 9/11 -- it's not a horror story; it's more funny than anything. Well, in retrospect anyway.

I was traveling from Canada to visit my sister in Texas, so we went through U.S. security on the Canadian side of the border, inside the airport. I was carrying my trusty old Pentax K1000 in a camera bag with several rolls of film, pens, a notebook (this is what I always carried, after 10 years as a reporter/photographer, LOL). The woman pulled my camera out and asked me to turn it on. I explained it wasn't that kind of camera. She opened it up (no film in it, thank goodness) and then closed it and pointed it at me, as if she were going to take a picture of me. I just stared back. It wasn't going to explode so I didn't care.

Then they up-ended the camera bag and all kinds of things fell out ... including one of these. It not only writes, but it lights up as well. None of which would've been a problem, except it fell off the table and onto the floor -- and I (stupidly) picked it up and stuffed it into my pocket.

The woman checking my stuff froze ... as did the BIIIIIIG guy behind her, who said to me, in that flat voice that tells you that you are really in trouble: "Ma'am, please put that back on the table."

Cue me reduced to babbling idiocy. I was sure I was about to get diverted to a one-way flight to Cuba.

One of them (can't remember which anymore) picked up the pen and started playing with it ... clicking it repeatedly; the nib descended, the light went on, the nib retracted, the light went off, etc.

Puzzled look. "What is this?"

Me: "It's just a toy, really, it's just a Harry Potter light-up pen; it'sjustatoyIswear ...!!!" *babble babble*

I guess they got tired of listening to me because they gave me the pen back and sent me on my way.