DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So I’m standing in the security line at the airport. A woman ahead of me has had her carry-on rejected by the X-ray operator, for she has made the grave mistake of attempting to bring a tiny pair of scissors aboard the flight. The entire line of would-be travelers had come to a standstill while the airline security staff picked through the woman’s bag, emptying it piece by piece, magazine, toothbrush, socks, chewing gum… I waited impatiently. I even muttered. OK, I admit it, I said it out loud: “I guess she doesn’t read the newspaper.” I was incapable of understanding how someone could be so daft as to try to bring anything on board an airplane that would warrant a second glance from the armed guards at the security checkpoint, and I wanted everyone within earshot to know it. Finally the technician located the manicure kit that had caught the attention of the scanner. The technician confiscated the scissors, repacked the bag, and the line took one grudging step forward.

My wife’s bag rolled down the conveyor. “Got two files here,” the operator sang out. The line stopped again while my wife’s stuff was unpacked, the nail files confiscated, and the muscly soldier guys with automatic weapons rolled their eyes. “Sheesh, you don’t read the newspaper either” I said aloud, although somewhat more quietly than before.

The X-ray operator sang out again. “Pocketknife,” he said, handing off yet-another carry-on bag for closer inspection. I am surrounded by idiots! I began to scream, until I saw that he was holding my bag.

And so it was that along with a variety of manicure scissors and nail files and a lot more Swiss Army Knives than Switzerland has ever had soldiers, my tiny pocketknife, which I thought I’d lost years before, was tossed into a locked metal box behind the more imposing of the two tall guys with rifles. I wonder what they do with all that gear.

On a related note, why exactly are the armed guards wearing camouflage suits inside the airport?