In breaking news, your reporter has officially determined that my earlier strange interaction involving airport security and harmonicas was not a fluke. Flying back from GECCO today my backpack got flagged for hand inspection at Washington National Airport. I got wand searched, including getting to unbuckle my belt in public so a strapping fellow could pat down my waistline. (I love how the Bush administrating continues to provide me with new and exciting opportunities!) Both my bags were rummaged through at some length by a nice lady, and once again she focussed on my harmonicas, pulling out all three of them and running them separately through the x-ray machine.
Wow. Who’d’ve thunk? Especially since I’ve never had problems with harmonicas before last month, and I’ve been traveling with them like this for years beyond counting.
I actually worked up the nerve to ask (in my best, lighthearted, I’m-a-good-citizen-not-an-evil-terrorist sort of voice) if the harmonicas really were the problem. And she nicely let me in on what I must assume is a Major Air Traffic Safety Board Secret: They were the problem. Presumably they look confusing or bad or generally disreputable in the x-ray, especially when jumbled in with other stuff. Her (very helpful) advice was to make sure to take them out of my bag in future and run them through the x-ray separately.
So, with my standard travel kit, this means I’ll run five distinct items/tubs through the x-ray machine:
- My laptop (which has to be separate)
- My harmonicas (which now need to be separate)
- The bucket with my shoes, pens, loose change, laptop sleeve, and other random crap that might set off their sensors
- My backpack (minus laptop and harmonicas)
- My carry-on bag
I’ll hold the line up as much as a middle-class family four all on my own. I can hardly wait :-).
I always knew you were a troublemaker. Terrorism via noise pollution, eh? You diabolical genius.
Seriously though, I warned you about those things when we encountered this problem in Ann Arbor. Not that I’m recommending you allow your principles to cave because of pressure from “The Man,” mind you. It’s just got to be a hassle to get stopped like that. So, allow your principles to cave out of laziness. *That’s* the American way.
Pretty amazing, especially since I never actually played (at least not in the presence of The Man).
I would be tempted to just leave them at home, but I suspect I’ll continue to carry them around and just run them through separately as the nice lady suggested. And as we learned from Josh Epstein at GECCO, you can’t let “The Man” slowly erode our freedoms or he gets away with it. So the harmonicas will just have to tag along, I’m afraid :-).