“TSA to the Rescue” Air Travel Super Heroes Save the Day!

I was standing in the security line at the airport waiting to be herded through the maze of checkpoints. Barefoot and minus anything metallic, I hoped to not be a randomly selected “winner” of a cavity search.

When it was my turn, I shoved my carry on through the x-ray machine and sauntered through the metal detector. I held up my boarding pass at the stoic TSA agent whose facial expression made clear how  much he hated his job.

While I waited for my belongings to make their way through the x-ray, they stopped the machine. “Uh oh” I thought, “Some poor schmuck is in trouble.” When I saw my backpack being pulled from the machine, I found out the schmuck was me. I couldn’t imagine what they wanted with my pack – it’s been filled with the same things for almost three years and has been on at least 50 planes without incident.

Maybe I dropped a pair of scissors in there? Did I slip a pocketknife in? I don’t really ever use it except for plane rides so I was dumbfounded.

The TSA agent escorted me to the metal table and explained that she was going to examine my bag. When I asked what the problem was…”You have a lot of loose change” was her response. I stared at her waiting for the punch line that never came as she started pulling my loose change from pack’s front pocket where I dump it.

“Just what do you think you’re going to find?” I asked as she continued to spread the change on the table. “You could hide things in here and we wouldn’t be able to see them.” I almost laughed out loud. “Ma’am this pack has been on 50 planes and never once have they searched my loose change!” I exclaimed. “Well some of us are more thorough than others” was all she could manage.

She started slowly putting my change back, satisfied I guess that I was not hiding a nuclear warhead amidst my nickels and dimes. She began to walk away with my change still laying out on the table, so I asked her if she wanted me to just finish the job since she obviously had other business to take care of. “I am busy” she said, and walked away.

Yes, I’m sure there’s a little old lady with an artificial hip that needs frisked, or maybe a single mother that needs to have her baby strip searched. “Please, by all means don’t let me hold you up…”

Rest assured fellow travelers that if I had developed the ability to flick a nickel with the precision and lethality of a ninja, TSA – The Air Travel Super Heroes have got your back…

Tagged as: air travel, airport security, cavity search, security, short stories, Stories, stupid, TSA