airport security? how it has(n’t) changed.
so i’m flying over the weekend out of a missouri airport which will remain unnamed (hey, nice arch!) and a couple of things struck me as odd.
first, when you’re going into the security line and there is NO line (literally nobody in line…the same line you’d expect to find at a hot chocolate stand in the sahara), why is it that southwest has a lady whose only job is to ask you if you have your “a-something rewards card.” when you say “no,” she won’t let you take the simple “L” shaped path to the security line (which by the way has nobody in it), but rather makes you walk the rat-maze to get to security. why is that? how did that motivate me to fly more and actually earn an “a-something rewards card?” sorta like the scene in ‘meet the parents.’ poor ben.
anyway, here was the more exciting news. it’s apparently okay to take bottled water through the security checkpoint again. i forgot that i had a bottle on the outside of my backpack as i put the bag through the xray machine. no alarms. no buzzers. no questions. just pure h2o bliss courtesy of the tsa! post-screening, i was thrilled yet half-expecting security to come up to me before the flight and question me about the bottle of water that i “snuck through security” (read: they didn’t detect during screening).
i must admit i hate buying water for the trip and having to give it up before the security part. it’s like pouring money down the drain, literally. so in these tough economic times i think it’s great that the tsa has decided to help us save $2.69 on that extra bottle of water. reasonable and economical. now that’s government at its best.
of course, on the off chance that this liquid lapse was unintentional, it sure doesn’t make one feel confident in airport security…if indeed a bottle of liquid like that can be used as an effective weapon onboard an airplane. once again, makes you wonder, are we any safer now that we were before terror hit home.
rock’n'roll