It seems all you need is a multimeter and two long tubes of chocolates. Pack the multimeter on top of the chocolates so that they look like one cohesive unit of pipes, electronics and wires in the airport’s security xray machine. Then enjoy as the security people take away your boarding pass and rummage through your luggage.
I had an interesting time on the flight back to Vancouver today. Yeah.
After the fun of being searched as a terrorist (northern BC being a hotbed for those, and me looking like one, being white and female and wearing a Lululemon hoodie) I got on the plane along with everyone else, but not before buying an overpriced bottle of water from the security area. Then we all sat around on the Dash 8 for 20 minutes as these two kids who were flying without guardians were yacking away to the flight attendant about how their aunt just had a baby? and how they enjoyed watching the baby drink milk? and not from the bottle? and that the baby pushed the towel away? when it drank? Ah, little kids and the things they don’t tell you. Then they started kicking each other. Then we were all taken off the plane, because the Vancouver airport hadn’t given the pilots the okay to start flying towards it, possibly because they’d heard about these kids.
I had enough time to pee and make a phone call before we were called to go back through security and start the fun a second time. So, I put my gear on the conveyor belt, completely sure of my innocence, except this time my carry-on luggage contained that bottled water I bought in security less than half an hour before. Obviously, though, it’s a bomb.
If I’m really a terrorist, I suck at it, if I can’t get past the security officers at Northwest Regional Airport. Good on them for protecting the world from me. Me big, me scary, me hijack tiny plane with water and chocolates, like evil MacGyver.
Oh good…so it seems my tip off to them didn’t get ignored!
At least you made it to Vancouver. All my flights got cancelled yesterday so I’m in Vernon until Sunday.
That’s lame about the water.
I’m kind of surprised they noticed the multimeter. I always fly with the weirdest things and expect to be sent straight to guantanamo. Routers, spools of network/power cables, car inverters (big metal box wrapped in wires), soldering irons, etc. and it all goes through xray without a second glance. But they’ll spend half an hour digging through my other bag to find the tiny bottle of sunscreen they are sure is a threat to the skies.
I recently read a funny observation that eventually some nutbar will soak his underwear in gasoline and try to get on a plane. Then, after they catch him, forever after we will all have to take off our underwear at the security checkpoint.
Airport security would be funny, if it weren’t so pathetic and inconvenient.
At Heathrow they seem to randomly chose between having shoes removed and hats. Or perhaps in my case they heard that the hat was versa-Tilley.
Aw man, I missed your birthday, your Christmas message, the Kitimat airport report, all that until now, when Air mentioned your bomb report and I said, “Huh? I thought she shut down the blog weeks ago.”
So now I’m back. Happybirthdaymerrychristmasdamnthat’scoldhahathosecrazysecuritytypes.
Okay, all caught up.
Posting something with this sort of a title may make your next trip to the US interesting.
I’ve had plenty of fun with security. Ratty sneakers? A few airports x-ray them. Hiking boots with metal all over them? That’s odd, the gate beeped at you. Keychain (1MB 30-pin RAM)? Hauled out for a closer look in two airports, ignored at many others. Large unlabeled plywood box full of dry ice, screwed shut, with a piece of metal inside? Six airport security screens and at least three customs inspections ignored it. Then my supervisor tried to take it to Winnipeg, and had to explain that it made no sense to write himself a note explaining why he needed it, while gesturing at a faculty ID card made of cardboard, with no photo, completed by typewriter. The student he handed the box off to in Winnipeg, who had blue hair and face piercings, had no trouble taking it to Montreal. I have friends who’ve accidentally taken large knives onto planes. Airport security serves to make us feel safe and to *deter* terrorists, particularly copycats — they might get caught. Prevention is not practical.
We’ll eventually have to be strip-searched to get onto a plane, after someone tapes ziploc bags of liquid explosives to their privates. Then terrorists will have to turn to surgically-implanted devices, ultimately necessitating banks of CT or MRI machines at all security gates.