ephemera

dwineman:

Every day at your airport checkpoints, you screen thousands of passengers for objects that could conceivably be used as a weapons. If you find one, you confiscate it, and the unfortunate traveler continues on her way, cupcakeless but no longer a threat to national security.

You’re also looking for explosives, which is understandable. If you found a live bomb — I mean, not that you ever have — but if you did, well, that would clearly be one terrorist caught and many lives saved, right? That is, assuming you actually remembered to do something about it, of course. But everybody makes mistakes and I won’t blame you for that. I’m sure someday you’ll stop being a complete waste of money. Really, we’re all pulling for you.

But here’s my question. Suppose I, a normal taxpaying non-terrorist type guy, were to bring through a checkpoint something relatively harmless but still against the rules: not a bomb but, say, a pocketknife. You’re going to take that away from me, right? But why? If I’m not a terrorist, how is it dangerous for me to have a four-inch folding knife in my trousers? It’s staying there until well after we land, unless Amazon Prime really improves. Or do you think I might suddenly decide to abort my vacation, abandon my family, and throw my life away in a fit of deranged violence when the captain interrupts the in-flight Mad About You for the seventh time to announce that one of the shittier Great Lakes is on the other side of the plane? Right when Murray the dog is about to make Paul Reiser get a little bit annoyed?

Of course not, because you are an organization of highly intelligent cupcake confiscators. The only logical reason for you to take my knife from me is that you think I’m a terrorist. You’ll smile and shake your head at the dopey terrorist, and you’ll go tsk tsk, and then you’ll let me through to board my flight.

So, TSA, answer me this: why are you allowing suspected terrorists onto planes?

An excellent question, and one of particular interest to me, as I once forgot that my keychain is also a three-inch folding pocket knife and tried to take it through security. (It’s mostly there as a weight on my keys, but occasionally comes in handy for opening packages and the like.)

The TSA agents started off with “Sir, really?” and ended by badgering me for a half an hour about why I was trying to take a knife on a plane. I told the truth—that it was early, and I had forgotten it was there—and apologised profusely, and while the knife stayed behind, I was ultimately allowed on the plane with a fountain pen, the keys themselves, and several other potential weapons.

Obviously, I had no terroristic intent and made no terroristic action. But if the more unpleasant of the TSA agents really thought I was trying to undertake some kind of violent action, why did he allow me on the plane at all?