I miss my tool

I've noticed something the last few times I've traveled.

Airport personnel have absolutely no sense of humor.

I think this has less to do with the events of 9/11 and more to do with the fact that, like most Americans, these people hate their jobs. They hate getting up in the morning, they hate being on their feet all day and they hate co-mingling with airport riff raff in search of cigarette lighters, tweezers and other dangerous contraband. It’s just one rung above wearing a hairnet and saying ‘do you want fries with that?’ on the employment ladder.

I experienced this lack of humor when I took a trip to visit a friend last fall. I had two bags with me and was planning to check one. But it was early in the morning and I got in the wrong line. Instead of baggage check-in, I found that I was in the security check line. I'd just stood in the line for half an hour. I didn’t want to get out of line, check my bag, and have to stand in line again. So I did my best to cram my larger bag into the 'your bag must fit here to be a carry on' thingy. It mostly fit. The guy inspecting the bags said it was good enough for him.

So was thinking, I'm in like Flynn.

Then I had to go through the damned metal detector and x-ray machines.

I put all my bags on the conveyer belt and disrobed to nearly my underwear. I was wearing some rather spiffy looking western boots. (They were bastard-child western boots with pointed toes. I would be executed for wearing these boots in, say, Texas, but they were fine for California.) The security guy pointed to them and said, 'how 'bout those boots?'  I held my foot out and smiled. "How about these boots? They're nice, aren't they? You like 'em?"

He just glared at me, which I interpreted of his way of telling me to stop being a smartass and take off the goddamned boots.

I obliged, and they went on the conveyer belt with all of my other possessions. I walked through the security gate with no problem. I waited for my bags.

Something beeped.

It was my bag.

Or rather, it was the machine that beeped because of something in my bag.

So I got to hold up the line while another man with no sense of humor examined the contents of my bag. This was the bag I had intended to check, by the way. My very expensive Leatherman tool was in there. I loved my Leatherman tool. I always carried it. You just never knew when you were going to be required to, say, open a wine bottle or defuse a bomb. I’m sure McGyver never left home without his Leatherman.

The Man With No Sense of Humor found my Leatherman tool, and promptly confiscated it. I guess he was afraid I’m going to try to tweeze the pilot or corkscrew one of the attendants.

This tool cost me fifty bucks. I wanted my tool back, or I wanted fifty bucks.

I told him this, pretty much in those words and in the tone you might imagine. I found out much later that they are SUPPOSED to give you the option of mailing your item back home if you want to. But he didn’t tell me this. He just told me he was taking the tool.

I told him again that he owed me fifty bucks.

He was not amused, nor did he look remotely like he was going to give me fifty bucks.

At this point anyone with me would have been cringing and/or pretending they didn’t know me, and/or summoning the nearest FBI agent to take me into custody.

I persisted up until what I perceived was the edge of this guy’s breaking point (even offering him a $10 discount if he paid cash), but in the end I lost the tool.

And as I walked away, he didn’t put it in the tray with the other confiscated contraband.

No.

He put MY Leatherman in HIS pocket.

I was tempted to leap back over the security gate in protest and demand that the man take the tool out of his pants. In retrospect, I can see where this request would have been grossly misinterpreted. Wisely, I just walked away, bemoaning the fact that I’d just bought The Man With No Sense of Humor a $50 tool.


By the way, this trip took place a few days before Halloween. Airline employees had decorated all the gates for the holiday. The United Airlines gate was elaborately decorated with skeletons, tombstones and a life-sized statue of the Grim Reaper standing right in front of the door you go through to board the plane. This is NOT what I want to see when I’m about to step onto a fifty-seven ton aircraft that defies all laws of physics and gravity in the first place. Still, it was funny in a sick, twisted sort of way. Anyway, I didn’t fly United, I flew Southwest. In keeping with their no-frills policy, Southwest’s decorations were more frugal and consisted mainly of giant cutouts of candy corn taped to the walls. They had real pieces of candy corn set out on the counters but the damned things were glued down. I tried to pry one up and some lady slapped my hand. I suppose that’s to be expected from an airline that just sends you on the plane in groups and makes you duke it out for seats and overhead storage. It’s a tough battle when you’re not allowed to carry any weapons. I could really have used the corkscrew attachment on my Leatherman tool.

Which was, of course, in the pocket of the pants of The Man With No Sense of Humor.