Has this ever happened to you?
Airport security, SFO, the other night as I made my way to the red-eye flight. My laptop, carry-on bag, purse, shoes, coat, hat, were all going through the machine, and then an alarm went off. Seems my purse "alarmed" the system!
Oh!
They had me go to a separate area, where the female inspector had to do further testing on my purse. Then she got her supervisor to come over. He explained to me that there was a "substance" in my purse, and that it was probably just hand lotion traces that caused the alarm. They would try again. Meanwhile, he told her to "wand" me (funny verb, huh?), which she did. My purse then came through without alarming, but the supervisor had to take my ID and boarding pass and enter me into some big logbook. As he was doing so, he mentioned that the book never leaves SFO, that I am not going into some national database, and not to worry.
(However, after he said all that, I DID worry. Why did he tell me not to worry? I wasn't worried to start with!)
The whole thing took about 5 extra minutes, but it amused me because I always have hand lotion in my purse. They told me that even makeup can alarm the system. If that's the case, they must have false alarms all the time from women's purses.
Have you had some odd experiences with airport security? For me, none of these are as weird as the old days of crossing the border into Canada from Vermont, when they used to randomly take us into the room of suspicious American citizens! (My mom was ALWAYS being taken in there. I think they just wanted to check her out, she was so beautiful!)
posted by Bri @ 5:26 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Hi Brina
We've been lucky so far.
Last summer my husband & I took our 3 kids to Fiji where we spent a lot of time not only going through airport security, but through 2 sets of customs, as well.
Our 1st flight was from Canada to LAX, so we had US customs to pass through.
My daughter had her purse thoroughly searched - you know the teenager with all the makeup & trinkets...
We had only one carry-on each & all our toiletries were sent with our regular baggage. That way they couldn't confiscate any "sharp" objects from our carry-on.
We then had to pass through Fijian customs when we arrived there after an 11-hour flight. It was 3:00 a.m. Fiji time & we were tired, but no hassles. We even bought some really cheap liquor at the duty-free shop in the tiny airport.
It was free-sailing through customs on the way home.
That's about as exciting as it got for us!
Take care.
Dale
Brina,
SFO has a particular obsession with shoes, and I learned my lesson going through there- it's loafers or slip-ons for me going through there. On our visit last March, my boyfriend was detained and then got into a bit of a shouting match with a security guy. I thought we were going to miss our flight, even though the plane was just at the first gate. My boyfriend is American, but has a low tolerance for what he calls the "idiocy od prodecures". I have to say, I like how tight things are at that particular airport; other airports are just completely lax- is that was LAX stands for? ;)
I've had random searches and I've made one security person blush for digging too deeply into the personal items part of the suitcase. The last one was pretty funny.
-AM
Cheers,
AM
Dale, Is it really your birthday today? If so, Happy Birthday, girl!
I do like the security at SFO. I think they do a great job.
Hugs to you girls,
Brina
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