People Are Recalling The Most Ridiculous And Annoying Experiences They Had With The TSA, And This Will Make You Reconsider Traveling With Carry-On Luggage
If you've been to the airport lately, you may fully comprehend how wild things have been. And while you can blame airplanes losing luggage or flights getting canceled, there's one thing you may be forgetting: the TSA.
And since over 400 people from the BuzzFeed Community shared their own wild experiences with the TSA, I figured I should share some of their responses below:
1."My mother had a prosthetic leg but mostly got around in a wheelchair. Security asked her to remove the shoe from her prosthetic (which was difficult to even put on). When we explained that, they then asked her to take off her *leg*, put it through the X-ray, and told her to walk through the scanner. My mom just looked at the TSA agent and went, 'Don't think I can do that either.'"
2."I had a Metallica shirt on (I'm a woman). The TSA pre-check guy wouldn't let me go through until I named a few Metallica songs. After holding up the line and naming off two albums' worth of songs, I was able to proceed with my day."
3."I was flying home from Rome back to the US a few months after 9/11. I wrapped my alarm clock and curling iron together in a plastic bag. Yeah, don't do that. The sheer number of police and Italian army dudes that went through all my bags was amazing."
4."In 2001 (two weeks before 9/11), I was 15, and my mom and I were traveling back to New York from a trip to California. Well, in upstate NY in the '90s and early '00s, you could not find good tortillas, so my mom bought three dozen tortillas in California and packed them to bring home. Did my smart, wonderful mother pack the tortillas in her checked luggage? Of course not! She put those three dozen delicious corn discs all stacked in a single bag in her carry-on luggage because she didn’t want anything to happen to them, and everyone knows they don’t exactly coddle your checked luggage. Well, what do you think three dozen tortillas stacked in a cylinder look like when they go through an X-ray machine? If you guessed bomb, you're CORRECT!"
"I recall watching her get escorted to the side as four TSA/security guards intensely question her about what the solid, unidentifiable cylinder is in her carry-on bag.
I will say that once they opened the bag and verified that the nice, very apologetic white lady just wanted to have a lot of good tacos in her future, it became a very funny joke, and I kind of hope they went home and told their friends about how they protected the airport from the malevolent tortilla threat!"
5."I went through TSA with a water bottle full of ice since that's allowed now. By the time we got through, some of it melted a little. TSA decided that it was sus and wanted us to either try to dump the Hydro Flask with everything in it or go back through security, dump the 'sus liquid,' then come back through. Only there would be no line jumping. So, logic would dictate by the time my husband got through, there would be water again because IT WAS A WARM DAY. I couldn't believe I had to explain the laws of thermodynamics to the TSA and held my hand out and told him I'd drink the damn thing in front of him to prove it was water."
"He stared at me like he didn't comprehend and finally let us go. But I mean, seriously, it had, like, less than an inch of water. And it was filled with ice. What did he expect ice to do on a warm day?"
6."I was traveling with a broken leg and had a wheelchair escort to security. I had crutches, too. When we got to the scanner, they told me to stand up and walk through the scanner without my crutches. I politely told them I could not, and instead, could they please send the crutches through the scanner, then frisk me? I couldn’t walk on my own. They just couldn’t believe it. I am not confrontational, but I did say that I found it hard to believe I was the first person ever in the history of ORD to have this situation. They finally scanned me manually. Sheesh."
7."My 2-year-old was very insistent that he pull his carry-on through TSA. So, when we put it on the scanner, he threw a fit because 'it’s MINE.' He had a Sing and Snore Ernie in there that he was taking on the trip with him. Before we could tell TSA what was in there, his bag started talking: 'I am sooo sleepy, I think I’ll take a nap.' And then, it started to sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' and then snore. We could watch his bag go up and down with each snore. Mayhem ensued: Radios came out, guards came running, and before you knew it, there was a pissed toddler who kept yelling, 'My Ernie, my Ernie.' Finally, they let us open the bag, and my son pulls out Ernie and stomps off. We apologized, and we were let through the checkpoint. It was the last time stuffies were in carry-ons!"
8."One time, my then-boyfriend (now husband) and I were flying to visit my family for the holidays. Security lines were longer than normal, and they were diverted around an open area. I was walking in front of my BF because he still wasn’t familiar with airports at that point. A security officer and a German Shepherd were patrolling in the open area we were being guided around. A new scanner opened up, and the line moved forward at least 30 people, so we started walking around the area pretty quickly to keep up with the line, and almost immediately, the officer and dog started following my boyfriend. When the line came to a stop, the dog sat right by my BF (apparently, this is an alert), and the officer immediately began to aggressively question my BF about what drugs he had, and my BF froze like a deer in headlights, completely silent."
"I realized what was happening and turned around confused, and the dog started struggling to reach my boyfriend’s rolling bag. The officer becomes confused by the dog now straining at its leash (not part of an alert I assume). My BF finally comes to his senses and almost screams, 'It’s my dog!' The officer doesn’t understand immediately and still has a hand on his holster.
My BF then turns the rolling bag around to show it holds my 10-lb., white, fluffy terrier mix through the mesh screen. The officer laughed, and you could feel the tension leave the air all around us (and hear lots of chuckles).
Thankfully, he found it funny and then told us the German Shepherd was still new and hadn’t seen a dog come through in a carrier before us (only service animals who are never in carriers).
The TSA agents ahead even heard the story by the time we reached the scanners, which definitely helped us bring our heart rates back to normal. We now laugh about it every time we fly eight years later, thankfully."
9."Back in the '70s, it was my first flight. I was 5. We were going to visit my grandparents. I had my teddy bear in my arms, and the security guard wanted to inspect it. My mom made me give up Teddy. I was really offended, so as the agent was twisting his arms and legs, I said, 'He's not loaded.' My mother wanted to die. The security agent just looked at me and handed Teddy back. As I walked past him, I said in a low voice to Teddy: 'I'll load you when we're on the plane.' We almost didn't make it to my grandparents. From then on, Teddy traveled in the checked luggage."
10."I was traveling with another family whose son had just broken one wrist and sprained the other, so he had a cast and a splint. The TSA agent stopped him and proceeded to argue with his parents, demanding he take his cast off. Obviously, he couldn’t do that, so they took a little metal probe and stuck it underneath his casts, and then proceeded to check for explosive dust on his hands. It was a long, humiliating process for him and his family."
11."My grandmother was a badass. She was my doctor's grandfather's medical assistant and took zero BS from people. She was flying with my dad after her double mastectomy and couldn't lift her arms because of severe pain from the scars. The TSA agent insisted that she do so to go through the machine. Of course, she explained the situation and asked for an alternative. The TSA idiot refused her one, and after several minutes of flat-out telling her she was making it up, he refused to let her go to her plane. At this point, my grandmother calmly said, 'Okay. No problem. I can prove it.' And began taking off her shirt. She got through security very quickly after that."
12."Back in the '80s, my neighbor was flying back to the US from France and had declared 'opium' on her customs form. She was surprised when she was met by officers with dogs asking to interview her in the room after de-boarding. She thought everyone knew Opium was a popular perfume back then and cheap to get in France. She had no clue it was also a drug."
13."I had my little 8-lb. terrier in a carrier. TSA made me take him out, remove his harness and collar and have him run through the scanner alone. I can’t even imagine what they thought he was hiding in his short fur. A friend later suggested that maybe they thought he was a 'terrierist.'"
14."I flew out to Indiana in June to see friends and my friend with benefits and packed a toy that I thought my friend with benefits would enjoy. The TSA agent pulled it out in front of everyone. I was just about to yell, 'THIS IS A MASTURBATOR FOR PEOPLE WITH PENISES' when her supervisor came over and waved me through."
15."The only time TSA was frustrating was when I was at security where they check IDs, and the woman wouldn't let me through. I understood why, though: My name had an extra letter, but she wasn't having it when I tried to explain I had already boarded other flights without problem because, obviously, it was me. She sent me to the front desk to take off an extra letter. The lady at the front desk said she wasn't going to do that because it's a process that could take hours if not days. So, the lady at the front desk personally escorted me to security and took me to a different TSA agent and told him to let me through, and I was able to catch my flight with no problem."
