I had the most bizarre experience in the airport security
line today.
The security guard scanning the carry-on luggage asked to
run my laptop bag through the machine a second time, which I thought was a
little odd – there was almost nothing in the bag after I took my laptop out. The second time through, she stopped the bag
and hailed another security guard to search it.
She pointed at the screen to show him what to look for, and he nodded
and brought the bag over to me.
By this time I was thoroughly confused. The guard asked if I had anything sharp in
the bag that he could cut himself on and I told him no, not to my knowledge –
and what a weird question, right? I’ve
never been asked that when my bag’s been searched, before. He searched through all the main pockets and
came up totally empty, as expected, and then went through them again for good
measure. I was getting a little annoyed
at his persistent searching.
But then he turned the bag over, opened the back pocket, and
pulled out a 10-inch butcher knife!
Let me tell you, a giant unfamiliar-looking knife is not
something you want to see come out of your laptop bag at the airport. I think my heart stopped. The guard looked at me like I was crazy and
then showed the knife to the first guard and then to another guard and asked if
I needed to be brought in for further questioning, and all the while I was
blathering that I didn’t know where it came from or how it got in there, and
absolutely yes, please go ahead and confiscate it. The third guard assured me I didn’t need to
be interrogated but of course they’d be taking the knife away from me, and to
my infinite relief they let me go on my way.
It took me about a half hour of racking my brain after
that to piece together a story about the knife.
It looked kind of like a knife from work in Arizona, and it’s possible I
put that knife in my laptop bag to keep from stabbing someone on the way to
cutting a birthday cake in the lab. And
then I totally forgot about it for many, many months up to and including the
moment it got pulled out of my bag by the very worst possible discoverer. I still
don’t particularly recall having done this, but it sounds plausible and almost
familiar.
I just want to point out that this means I’ve taken that
knife with me on at least one other flight before this one, if not a few more. I find it a little concerning that it hasn’t
been found before now. But if I could I’d
give those guards today a raise.
