Posted by
UncaAlby on Monday, October 16, 2006 1:58:43 PM
The TSA Joke
The Transportation Security Administration of the Homeland Security Department is a joke.
As you well know, unless you’ve been living as a hermit in the Himalayas, deodorant, toothpaste, and even short pocket knives have been banned from carry on. Shoes must be removed for X-ray inspection. Gee, I feel safer already. In the meantime, bin Laden must be laughing his arse off over there in his little cave, knowing that, even if he can’t bring us down, he can certainly make us waste our hard-earned time and money. We may yet bring ourselves down.
I’ve just returned from a business trip. I work with, around, and on computers. So I happened to bring my little tool-kit with me. I didn’t expect to need it, but I figured I’d be better off having and not needing than needing and not having. They saw the pliers in the x-ray machine and pulled me aside. They got out a ruler to measure the pliers!
Nope. Too long. Have to check this under the plane. What???
I mean, come on! Pliers? “LOOK OUT YOU INFIDELS, I’VE GOT A PAIR OF THREE INCH PLIERS, AND I KNOW HOW TO USE ‘EM!!”
For Your Protection?
Then, the TSA gets a-hold of my bag. It’s not enough to make me wait forever in baggage claim, they have to rip open my bag. I’m waiting patiently for my bag to come down, and I see my green tag that I use to identify it – and all this tape wrapped around it. So I’m thinking, well that looks like my bag, but I certainly don’t remember wrapping it in tape like that – ARRRGH! IT IS MY BAG!
And I do mean they ripped it open. Then put a little card in there letting me know they ripped it open because it was “locked.” LOCKED?? You mean that little bitty string I tied around the zipper so it wouldn’t open by accident? THIS is what the TSA calls “LOCKED?”
Maybe they use itty bitty strings to lock their house. No wonder burglary is rising.
The little card politely informs me that destroying my luggage is for my own protection, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Sorry, tough luck. Buy another bag. Send the bill to bin Laden.
Please Remove Your Shoes –
Terrorists Please Line Up Here –
I also want to give a mention to this “taking off the shoes” thing. All this nonsense just because somebody was caught sneaking a bomb in their shoes. I’ve got a newsflash for you – if a bomb can be snuck in shoes, it can be snuck in anything.
What are they going to do when a terrorist is caught sneaking a bomb on board in her tampon?
Maybe I should just shut up before I give ‘em any more ideas.
As you may or may not know, you have to show them your medications in a quart-size plastic bag. Mine was larger. “Sorry sir, but next time, please use the quart-size.” “Why?”, I ask. “Just policy, sir.” Oh great. A rule with no reason.
I just can’t tell you how safe I feel, protected by unionized federal civil servants who can not be fired. Protected from shoes, deodorant, pliers and oversized plastic bags.
I was reading the signs as I was going through security. In particular, the ones that read, “NO JOKES.” As I was going through, one of the agents was laughing and joking and making hand gestures as if herding cattle. I caught her eye, smiled, and said, “Hey, the sign says, ‘no jokes!’” At which point, she laughed, and pointed clandestinely to the agent who was currently inspecting my carry-on – as if to say, “THIS fellow is the JOKE!”
No, ma’am, you’ve got it wrong. The whole TSA is a joke. Only it’s not funny.