For a veteran firefighter, there must be few things cooler than attending a conference featuring the great Red Adair discussing how he battled the blazing oil wells set alight by Saddam Hussein’s forces during Desert Storm.
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It was for that event that Marine Corps firefighter Jim Casey packed his service uniform in a carry-on garment bag for the flight from Washington to Houston.
“At the X-ray machine, the young lady noticed a metal object on my uniform blouse and called it to my attention,” wrote Jim, of Dumfries, Va. “Unzipping the bag, she asked me what it was.”
To the pitiless eye of the X-ray machine, the jagged, multipointed object looked like a stealthy weapon beloved by ninjas: a throwing star.
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Wrote Jim: “It took me several minutes to convince her that affixed beneath my ribbons and shooting badges was a Fire Service badge, shaped like a Maltese cross.”
More tasty tales from the front lines of airport security
As we’ve seen this week, to an X-ray, not all is what it seems.
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Before returning from a trip to London, John McLean of North Beach, Md., shopped for souvenirs on Portobello Road in Notting Hill.
“This time my stash included a brass beer tap, which I realized only later had a profile that very much resembled a handgun,” John wrote.
A security agent took one look at the X-ray screen, then asked: “Okay, what is it?”
John told him he was disappointed an Englishman didn’t recognize a beer tap when he saw one. “He simply laughed and accepted my suitcase without me even having to open it,” wrote John.
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In the 1990s, the District’s Larry Miller traveled frequently to Oklahoma City. At the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum he purchased a present for his 6-year-old son, Ben.
When Larry was at the airport to fly home, a security guard looked at the spectral image of his overnight bag and asked if he’d forgotten that he’d had packed his gun.
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“I did a triple-take and remembered that I had bought a pack of cowboy-themed sidewalk chalks, including a realistically-sized chalk gun,” Larry wrote. “A good laugh all around. I would bet that the reaction today at the airport would not be so amiable and that the museum no longer sells that item.”
I checked. It doesn’t.
A harmonica strikes a discordant note in the airport security line
Remember collar stays, those tiny pointed planks that keep collars straight? Peter C. Salerno of Pine Plains, N.Y., had a nice set of metal ones from Brooks Brothers that he often kept in his suit bag.
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“There were six pairs lined up in a leather case,” he wrote.
Pulled out of the security line before boarding a flight in Albany, Peter got to see what they looked like to an X-ray machine.
“The metal really lit up and it looked for all the world like a few rounds of high-powered ammunition,” he wrote.
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A family physician from Columbia, Md., Bob Goodwin was once subjected to a secondary search after a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agent thought his otoscope was a hand grenade.
Wrote Bob: “I never took it onboard after that, hoping no one in my travel group would develop an ear infection.”
Rick Starr of Knoxville, Tenn., had completed his flight and was waiting in the baggage claim area for his suitcase to come down the chute. It never did.
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He finally spied it sequestered in a corner.
“When I walked that way I was approached by an airport worker,” Rick wrote. “？‘My bag,’ I said, pointing.”
The man kept his distance. Rick realized why.
“My battery-powered electric razor had somehow gotten switched on inside the bag and was making a substantial enough buzzing sound to be heard from several feet away,” he wrote. “I reached into the suitcase, pulled out the buzzing offender and, triumphant, switched it off. No harm, no foul, and I was on my way.”
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Let’s get out of the airport and travel with Ago Ambre on a trip he took to Florence, Italy. To change money, he entered a bank’s revolving door.
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“It promptly locked me in,” wrote Ago, of Silver Spring. “A recording instructed me to put metal objects into a tray. Which I did. The machine kept insisting.”
Ago had recently undergone his second knee replacement and he protested that he couldn’t remove metal that was inside his body.
“But no one heard me because it was noon, and most of the staff was out to lunch,” he wrote. “I spent what seemed a long time contemplating the efficiency of anti-terrorism and crime-prevention measures.”
Bon voyage
Now it’s my turn to head to the airport. I’m taking some time off. I’ll be back in this space on Nov. 15.
Twitter: @johnkelly
For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/john-kelly.