TSA: Why do you have so much soap?

Posted in Security | 12 comments

TweetShare

I seem to be having run ins with the TSA lately, and for stupid reasons. I flew out of Phoenix Sky Harbor on my way to Charlotte for a TV appearance. I was wearing civilian clothes because I wasn’t traveling for airline related work and because I wanted to be comfortable for my transcon journey. So, I followed the 3-1-1 rule and put my liquids and gels in their ziplock, in a bin and placed the remainder of my bags on the belt, as usual.

As my bags started to come out of the X-Ray machine they grabbed my messenger bag and said they needed to “re-run” it through. I acknowledged it and began to collect my other belongings. I watched as they put my messenger bag back through the machine, and then I saw an agent grab it on its way out, which is never a good sign.

He walked over to me and told me to “follow him” to an area where he wanted to open my bag. So far he’s been nice and I’ve been compliant, but that was about to change. We get over to this silver table and as he puts on rubber gloves he says to me “so, is there anything sharp in there that might cut me, or anything in there that might bite me?” What? Bite you? “Uhh.. as you just saw In the x-ray machine, there’s no animals in there, and no theres nothing sharp.” After an “I’m not joking” glare, he unzipped my bag.

Now, before I go on let me remind you that I was headed to Charlotte to tape a TV appearance and if you’ve seen any of our last appearances you know that we promote a popular cosmetic and soap company, so I had a lot of solid soaps and lotions in my bag.

The agent removed my sweater from the top of my bag then pulled out the first soap container: “What’s this?” – “It’s soap,” I replied. “Why is it in a silver container?” he asked, “Because thats the way it’s sold.” He pulled out the next one, “and this?” – “It’s also soap,sir.” “And why is this in plastic?,” Now I thought he was being a bit ridiculous, “becasue I haven’t used it yet.. see, the label is still on it.”
“..and this bar is?” – “I’ll give you one guess, it’s soap! It’s all soap.” So he looked down and saw the remaining 3 bars of soap. “Why do you need this much soap?” Not that it was any of his business, I responded: “because I like to be and stay clean, that’s why.”

Not pleased with my answer he decided to “swab” my bag and told me that the results of the test would tell him why my bag had to be rescreened. He didn’t know that I was a crewmember, and I knew damn well that the machine wasn’t going to tell him what the agent looking at the x-ray machine’s montior saw.. but I played along. While we were waiting for the results I told him I was flying to Charlotte to go on television and I would be showing these soaps, that’s why I had so much. “Well,” he said, “it looks like the soap showed up as something other than what it was on the x-ray machine.”

“Okay,” I said, “so, what now?” The agent took all of my soap bars, placed them into a bin and re-screened them. By this point I already told him he could open them up. As the soap comes out of the machine, he grabs the bin and walks over to the agent looking at the monitor. They both look at, touch and even smelled two of the bars. And guess what they determined? It was soap.

The agent came back to me, said I was “cleared” and asked why I didn’t just ship the soap to my destination. I responded by saying “why would I ship soap to my hotel if I can just carry it through?” –”Well next time,” he explained, “put the soap in your ziplock bag.” Huh? “Sir, the soaps are solids, they don’t go in the ziplock bag.. only liquids and gels go in the ziplock.”

Take this experience as a lesson: Nothing is consistant. And, if you’re traveling with a lot of soap, ship it to your hotel and/or place it in a ziplock bag, because when mixed with water.. it COULD be a liquid!

TweetShare