Stopped By The TSA

As we were going thru the security checkpoint at Mitchell I ended up getting called out of line by the TSA for a pat down.  It all stemmed from the fact that I didn’t take my money clip out of my pocket.  I was under the assumption that you didn’t need to pull the cash out of your pockets and drop it in the trays.  I thought I remembered the TSA telling me I didn’t need to do it when I went thru the airport in Phoenix a couple of months ago, so I didn’t do it this time.  From this experience I learned that first of all, every airport is different so it is best just to empty everything, and two, securing cash deep in a pocket of the backpack I am carrying thru the checkpoint is the easiest way to avoid this in the future. 

So I got pulled aside by an agent who had to give me the whole explanation of this, and then proceed to give me the once over.  All of Ali’s friends, and the cheer coaches (as well as Kris) were laughing watching me get the pat down.  The big joke was, what was I trying to smuggle thru the airport.  I found it funny that the agent had to give me a blow by blow walk thru of everything he was doing to me.  I get that they sort of have to do it because I set off the alarm going thru the detector.  Once they explained it to me I was of the opinion, OK, let’s just go thru this so I can continue on my way.  I was trying to be more than cooperative to speed up the process.  I would have been happy with just saying, yeah, yeah… go ahead and do whatever you need to in order to get me thru as quickly as possible. 

I guess that now, the next time going thru the checkpoint, I’ll be aware.  Not that it was a horror story as I have heard in news reports.  I think that some of those people exaggerate a little bit because they are disgruntled for having to be pulled aside, and for the purposes of getting on the news.  But I will say that I was more peeved at the amount of time it took rather than the process itself.  Live and learn.