Travelin’ Whovian June 21, 2014
Posted by mareserinitatis in family, older son, science fiction.Tags: airline, dr. who, older son, security, travel, tsa, whovian
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The older son travels rather frequently to see family, but he’s had rather lousy luck with TSA. Almost every time he’s gone through security, he’s had something happen. When he was younger, it was often his own fault. For instance, there was the time that he decided to bring some spending money…and had about three dollars in pennies in the bottom of a carry-on. The folks manning the x-ray machine were not happy with him, and he had to fish all the coins out of an exceptionally full backpack.
As he’s gotten older, the incidents have been more innocuous. There was one time where he had too large a container of toothpaste (they threw it away) and another time where he had a nail clipper. (I think I wasn’t flying with him that time, but I had a gate pass as he was flying as an unaccompanied minor. They gave it to the security guard who held it and gave it to me when I returned the gate pass.)
Today, he flew out again (from Fargo, which is a rather small airport) and had yet another fiasco with security. Apparently TSA noticed something in his carry-on as it passed through x-ray. I was actually waiting near the entrance to security (no gate pass this time) and he was about 100 ft. away. I could see something had happened with his bag and there was TSA agent riffling through it…and older son didn’t look happy. Finally, the agent reached in and pulled out…the older son’s sonic screwdriver.
From the look on the agent’s face, it was very apparent he had never seen an episode of Dr. Who in his life. He was holding it in front of himself, quite gingerly. I could easily see the furrowed brows and potential fear in this guy’s face, even 100 ft. away. He was obviously thinking, “What this hell is this thing?!” And I burst out laughing, definitely out loud. I’m sure the security guard next to the exit gate, along with everyone else standing near me, must’ve thought I was disturbed.
Fortunately, however, the screwdriver was returned and the older son made his flight…just barely. Maybe next time he’ll bring a banana instead. They’re a good source of potassium, you know…and, well, TSA probably won’t freak out over that.
I still haven’t figured out why the older son had a sonic screwdriver in his carry-on to begin with.
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