Apparently, a 56-year-old, 5′ nuthin’ woman with Fibro and Essential Tremors is a threat to national security! But don’t worry…TSA THOROUGHLY investigated me. Don’t you all feel safer now?!
Out of hundreds of would-be passengers in the San Fransisco TSA line, they singled ME out. After having taken my shoes and sweater off, put my purse in a bin and my iPad in a separate bin (cuz iPads apparently don’t work and play well with others!), AND going through the auto scanner thingie (on which, the 6′ 7″ tall agent didn’t have the capacity to understand why both of my feet couldn’t reach the outer edges of the foot stickers), I was directed to the second tier TSA agent with the attitude of Atilla the Hun and no desire to explain herself.
“What’s in your bra?” she asked. At this point, I’m both reflecting on the Capital One commercials and wondering what on earth women carry in THEIR bras these days! I said, “Just ME!”
She continued, “I need to know WHAT is in your bra.” I told her I didn’t understand the question. There’s only me in here. “What’s in your bra?” Then, I had an epiphany. Thinking the scanner picked up the underwire in my bra, I asked if that was what she was referring to. Unfortunately, Attila the Fun wasn’t in an explaining mood and continued asking… “What’s in your bra?!” Finally, I said, “There isn’t anything in my bra but ME!” I didn’t stuff a quiche in there! Good Lord what do women put in there?!
Then she asked if I want to be patted down in a private place where no one can see. Well, just as long as you keep the rest of my clothes on, I’m fine! So, she proceeded to “pat” me down everywhere but the bottoms of my feet. Little did she know I had a fuzzy on the inside of my sock that I managed to smuggle onto the plane!
And, by the way, they really should rename that procedure. It’s NOT a pat. They PUSH you as they feel for that quiche! And each “pat” gets harder until you eventually almost fall over, which is the signal of a job well done to their coworkers!
Just in case you think you’re done…they send you to the NEXT TSA Tier Level. That’s where they “swab your hands for explosives.” I wear children’s size gloves. My hands can’t hide explosives! They must have meant explosive residue.
* SIDE NOTE: I’m apparently mildly allergic to whatever that stuff is. My hands turned red and started tingling almost like a light stinging feeling. But they can’t tell me what it is or they’d have to kill me so I guess I’ll never know.
At this point, I’m wondering what kind of an idiot bomber would go through a TSA line KNOWING she had explosives in her bra and didn’t wash her hands?! But I digress.
After all of that, I was then free to try to find my belongings which had already been sitting there for five minutes with a “Take Me; I’m Yours” sign on them! I put my shoes back on and grabbed my iPad, sweater, and purse only to find my son and husband still hadn’t finished getting dressed. They had to take EVERYTHING out of their pockets and were holding their pants up with one hand while holding their stuff in the other and trying to put their belts back on. During that time another TSA agent, whose job it was to stand watch over the empty bins bunching up as they fall off the conveyer belt and scream, “PUT YOUR BINS BACK!,” looked on disapprovingly.
My only revenge is that my killer fuzzy had been successfully deployed. Somewhere someone has it attached to the bottom of their shoe and I’m currently picking up surveillance footage!
