Flying used to be fun. Then a drag. Then a druge. Now it is 1930s Italy, with the TSA in your happy role as Mussolini's Brown Shirts.
We were leaving through Newark last Friday and the lines didn't move. Turns out that all 10 people in both lines had to gather round one of the x-ray machines to try to figure out what this was. Here's an idea. Why don't just 2 of you open that bag?
But... no suggestions, comments, jokes or breathing. The TSA will lock your ass up sooner than you can demand your right to a telephone call (you got no rights in the Airport Buddy!).
So, FINALLY, they figure out the screen has a bottle of liquid that is 3.x ounces. "Ma'am, I am going to have to throw this out. The bottle is more than 3 ounces." "But it isn't full. And it's baby formula." "Ma'am, do you want on this flight?"
So she leaves with that child (luckily not on my flight).
Then a family of obviously upper middle class black people go through security. This, of course, involves shoving all the kids backpacks, shoes, and layers through the x-ray machine. Then the stroller. (One child had an argument with the TSA man when he told her to put the laptop through separately. She didn't have a laptop, it was a dvd player. But laptops have to go separately. But it was a DVD player. But laptops have to go separately. But it was a DVD player. Ultimately, she won. Apparently persistence is the way to go here.)
Of course, then the TSA finds something on the x-Ray which has to go back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. But the stroller, with wheels, has now been twisted and won't fit in the machine. So the dad has to go back to fix it (which annoys a woman whose purse is right behind, now under the stroller.). But Dad has already put on his shoes back on. The TSA explains shoes go through the machine. But they already went through the machine. But what if you altered them inside. Then inside isn't safe. Oh. I don't care. The shoes got to go through again. So the shoes come off again, the stroller is fixed and all seems right with the world.
WAIT!
Someone did not put their shoes through! All family members look around at their socked feet. No, no shoes here.
Almost no one.
The baby has booties / tennis shoes. The baby can't walk, but might be smuggling in a shoe bomb.
I want to scream that a shoe bomb in size 3 month baby freaking booties won't light a fart, much less blow a plane up - but I know where that gets me. Strip searched as I wave my flight goodbye; so I shut up like the other drones as we watch a mother yank the freaking baby booties off to shove them through the machine.
Surprise, they were clean. Thank god for the good people at the Newark TSA!