A brush with the TSA today...

A well-trained citizen is expected to know and follow the local rules of each TSA station, I guess. For the agents, their station is their world, and nothing else exists.

Years ago, there was a sign at the filing window of the County Clerk's office at the courthouse in San Francisco. It said, "We don't care how they do it in Los Angeles."
 
Yup and people could hang out at the local airport and watch planes....
Those were the days.. I have a picture of me at about age 3 (1979) sitting on the tire of a P-40 at CRQ where the new jet center is now.
 
I will admit to messing with them occasionally. I have flown with medical devices that most definitely look like adult toys (d****s). I have been know when questioned what it is to say "It's an adult toy" with a straight face. The fact that I'm a dude makes it even more funny.


I've been tempted to go thru the nudie machine with a 12" d***o down the leg of my pants. I keep getting talked out of it by the women in my life.
 
When I was broke-er, I used to go to the Crown Room at ATL where I could drink for free all night long. Heck, I'm thinking I can still do this. Join the Spirit Airlines $9 club and anytime a $9 ticket comes along just go through security and hit the ole Delta Lounge and all you can drink for $9. They even have veggies and what they call soup. Cheap Date!!
 
Watched an old movie the other night (One, Two, Three with James Cagney, 1961 - great film). Cagney's character was meeting an incoming passenger at Tempelhof in Berlin. His limousine pulled right up to the stairs as passengers were deplaning from the Pan Am DC-7. It seemed so odd ...

:(
 
I've been tempted to go thru the nudie machine with a 12" d***o down the leg of my pants. I keep getting talked out of it by the women in my life.

Heard of one of our crews slipped (no pun intended) a dildo into one of the FAs bag before going thru security and they found it. In full view of other passengers waiting in line, "is this yours honey". Don't know who that was that would do such a thing, I swear I don't.
 
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Was that at Newark? I had the same thing happen there. I didn't take my laptop out so they "punished" me by making me wait about 10 minutes for a screener to look at my bag himself. He barely opened it enough to see that, indeed, it was a laptop.

Newark plays by it's own rules and retaliates. Worst TSA station in the country.
 
I asked to shoot a movie for a school project at Stapleton once. They declined. So we went and shot the movie anyway.

In high school, a friend and I had Stapleton Airport Track Team shirts made up, and we would go run the concourses, acting like we were late for flights, wearing them. Until you stopped, nobody could easily read the shirt. Once you did stop, they'd look and read, and then do a double take, and then look again...
 
Yes, you need not only PreChek but to be in the PreChek line in order to avoid taking the laptops out or removing your shoes.
 
Yes, you need not only PreChek but to be in the PreChek line in order to avoid taking the laptops out or removing your shoes.
TSA procedures at some airports are different than at others, and the traveler is made to feel like a poorly-trained citizen for not anticipating the local idiosyncrasies of each station. At PHX, for example, the Pre-Chek line is often closed during slack hours, but customers holding Pre-Chek boarding passes still get a sort of hybrid "TSA Lite" treatment in the regular line.
 
Yes, you need not only PreChek but to be in the PreChek line in order to avoid taking the laptops out or removing your shoes.
Newark does not have a separate Pre-Check line, at least not at the Southwest gate. When you show your boarding pass, they give you a colored card that supposedly allows the screeners to use Pre-Check procedures, but as I stated above, laptops still need to be in a separate bin. Since you are in the same line, it doesn't speed things up any.
 
Newark does not have a separate Pre-Check line, at least not at the Southwest gate. When you show your boarding pass, they give you a colored card that supposedly allows the screeners to use Pre-Check procedures, but as I stated above, laptops still need to be in a separate bin. Since you are in the same line, it doesn't speed things up any.
Yeah, it depends on the airport. Arrive at DCA before Pre opens and you'll end up in the regular line ith most of the Pre procedures. Some want laptops out, others get to leave them in, but take off shoes.

Even Global Entry varies a bit by airport - at ORD you still end up in the regular Customs line at times, but there are separate lines at other airports.
 
Even Global Entry varies a bit by airport - at ORD you still end up in the regular Customs line at times, but there are separate lines at other airports.
I only used Global Entry once, at DEN, and I was the only one at the kiosk. But the baggage took a long time to arrive at the carousel so it didn't speed things up. I should have carried on.
 
TSA procedures at some airports are different than at others, and the traveler is made to feel like a poorly-trained citizen for not anticipating the local idiosyncrasies of each station...

I just follow directions, and I don't worry about whether anyone thinks I'm well trained or not.
 
Make your handlers earn their keep. I always ask what they want. They like that, especially after they just finished reciting the whole thing to the crowd.
Unnecessarily making others' jobs harder is not on my list of things to do.
 
Well, when you travelers need to be worried about aircraft / cockpit security let me know.

Apparently many don't, otherwise you may think differently.
 
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