I didn’t blog last week because I was in New York, attending a writers’ conference, catching up with some old colleagues and meeting my new agent. All in all, I should say it was a great week. And it was…although it didn’t start out that way. And that was because I didn’t have a one-quart-sized plastic baggie when I arrived at the security check-in at San Francisco Airport.
Note to anyone who hasn’t travelled in an airplane recently: All toiletries must not only be in containers no more than THREE ounces, they should also be secured in a ONE-quart-size plastic baggie. You know, like the kind you keep your tomato and turkey sandwich in, so it doesn’t get the cookie soggy that you brought for dessert, when you’re bringing your lunch to work, in a brown paper bag. Just like poor Selma Williams did. But I’ll get to her in a minute.
I was wrong to question my president‘s new task force. Homeland Security is for sure training the security personnel at the airports, because they are one sharp group of people. They recognised that I was a potential terrorist. Okay, I admit I was able to fool them for a while. I’d taken to wearing only my newest gym socks when flying and most of the time, I remember not to double-knot my sneakers, even though I trip on the laces as I walk through airports. Because I know those sneakers are coming off and the agents at the security check-out will immediately pull anyone aside for a second look if your socks have holes in them, or if you have any trouble at getting your shoes off at the same time you have to put your laptop, cell phone, purse, carry-on and the ashes of your beloved dog, or whatever other precious cargo you’re holding and putting into those grey tubs to be scrutinised. I even go braless now when I fly. Not because I’m an exhibitionist. I just got tired of being pulled over, along with every other buxom women with to have my midsection subjected to electromagnetic waves coming from a security wand, because the under-wire in our support bras tripped off the metal detectors.
Despite my trickery, security at SFO was too clever. This time they got me. The photo I’ve posted on this page is the photo that the agents took of me at the airport, where I was trying to smuggle C-4 under my hair clip. I thought it was well-disguised, but I’d forgotten that my hair clip was metal, not plastic. It set off bells and the agents quickly pulled me aside. It was then that they discovered that my lipstick, a 3-ounce bottle of very expensive perfume and my tube of toothpaste, along with my toothbrush, were just thrown in my handbag—NO PLASTIC BAGGIE securing them. Well, what can I say? I was in a hurry. But now, I was caught. I could either surrender the items to the very young female agent (who’d recognised and commented on the brand of perfume) or I could find a plastic baggie and place the items in it. I was not about to give up that perfume. And the lipstick was my favourite, too. So, that’s where Selma Williams comes in—bless her generous heart. After a fifteen-minute futile search for a plastic baggie, (for which the security agents had marked my boarding pass, taken my purse and other valuables and released me from the security area, so I could go back into the terminal and ask airport personnel for assistance,) Selma Williams of the TSA at a booth outside the airport, took her sandwich and cookie out of her own, personal plastic baggie and handed it over to me, crumbs and all. Then she asked me for a tip. But if you recall, airport security had held my handbag, with my wallet in it.
When I explained that to Selma, she said, “That’s alright, girlfriend, I got your back.”
Promising myself I would get a tip to her on my way home, I thanked her and did as I’d been instructed. I put the offending items in Selma’s baggie and went back to the ‘special’ gate at the ‘special section’ security counter where I had been told to return, not wait on line again and go through.
But – uh, oh – the security agent who’d released me was gone from that post and an agent who’d never seen me before, was manning it. It took me less than thirty seconds to explain what had happened. With barely a glance at the scribble that the other agent had
marked on my boarding pass, this new person let me through, no questions asked, no verification by any other personnel of my story.
I’ll have to remember that next time I”m smuggling military explosives in my hair.
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haha. i like you. sounds like something that would happen to me. living in houston, i'm used to IAH, but having recently flown to PHX, i was very impressed that not only did they have boxes of baggies (actually freezer bags) waiting for passengers on a very nice particle board folding table, they had footsies as well (the kind you wear in hospital nurseries). As an admitted fashionophile, let me tell you.. I felt "hawt" going through that line, which actually ended with a gallant walk through the metal detector instead of the anti-bacterial bathing I was expecting. 🙂
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