I try to treat my time with airport security as an opportunity for serendipitous amusement: sometimes lip balm is needs to go into your
ONE QUART ZIP TOP BAG, and sometimes not. Sometimes a tube of antibiotic ointment need to go into the ONE QUART ZIP TOP BAG, sometimes not (one TSA agent loudly told me that Neosporin specifically did not have to be bagged, so she took it out of my ONE QUART ZIP TOP BAG and threw it in the gray plastic bin with my shoes,
after everything had gone through X-ray, hmm). Sometimes the agent will say "hey you missed one" after spotting a small tube of something or other in my bag. Cowering like a bad puppy I await my humiliation. But they just wave me through. But then one time post-X-ray an agent, made an example of me, held up my clear zip top bag over her head and loudly says "THIS IS NOT A ONE QUART ZIP TOP BAG!", but it is clear, has a zip top, and was given to me by LAX so that I could "zip through security". "WELL I DON'T KNOW WHAT LAX IS DOING GIVING PEOPLE NONSTANDARD BAGS". Whatever :)
And then there is the
shoe carnival.
All this doesn't bother me much, but then I haven't lost
a bunch of money like the producers of
Lost did when their film was X-rayed.
The state film office said it has worked with TSA and United Airlines to put a new process in place that will prevent future accidents.
"The issue has been addressed, and they have procedures in place to make sure it doesn't happen again," said Dawson, the state film commissioner.
You can read more about it
here.
And that Neosporin stuff? It is
specifically mentioned on the TSA website, and has to go
in the ONE QUART ZIP TOP BAG. Vindicated again!
P.S. The Jetsons-looking
restaurant in the middle of LAX is
closed since a panel fell off the building. The cool observation area just above the restaurant has been closed for years. That was a great place to watch planes.
