There was a long line at security but it moved quickly. When we got up to the x-ray machines, #1 Son stepped over to the side and sat on the floor to take off his boots. He told me to go ahead, but I said I’d wait. I heard a couple of security guards say something about “we need to check this out.” A security guard looked at me and said, “Are you traveling with him?” I said that, yes, I was and that he was my son. The security guard asked to see #1 Son’s bullet belt that is made from spent cartridges. #1 Son handed it over. We’ve traveled before with The Belt (after this trip the thing will be forever capitalized in my mind), and it’s never been a problem. I mentioned that to the security guard, and he said, “Regulations do change.” “OK” I said. And we stood quietly in the corner by the x-ray machine while the security guard sent The Belt over to someone else to look at. After about 5 minutes, word came back that The Belt was harmless and could go through security. So #1 Son finished stripping off the metal, and we went on through. My purse was scanned twice, probably because of my oh-so-dangerous cuticle nippers that will barely nip a cuticle much less do serious injury to someone. But in the end we escaped without having to go through a search.

As we started off towards our gate, I turned to #1 Son and said, “Well, that wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Let’s get some coffee, eh?” Just as I said that, I heard someone yell, “Stop!” And out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone running towards us. I turned to look and, yes, it was a security guard. And, yes, she was talking to us. “Stop! He can’t go forward with that on!” she said, pointing at The Belt.

“We just went through Security,” I explained very calmly, “and they said it was OK.”

“Well, it’s not OK, and you’ll have to come back!”

So, we trudged back up to Security. Once there, we were surrounded by about 10 security guards. #1 Son took The Belt off, and they passed it around and everyone examined it from every possible angle. And they all agreed that it was harmless and the bullets couldn’t be fired, because these were spent shells and there weren’t any bullets. And then they called over the head-honcho security guard. And he examined it from every angle and peered into every shell, and agreed that the damn thing was, actually, perfectly harmless. And he gave it back to #1 Son and said we could continue to our gate. The security guard that had dragged us back at least had the decency to thank us for our cooperation. The rest just turned and walked away. And so did we.

When we reached our gate, we were asked to take part in a “How do you love PDX” survey. I made sure to comment that PDX had the most paranoid security of any airport I’d ever been in, and just how many terrorists did they expect to fly out of Portland, anyway? One of the survey sections started with the question, “When I left security, I:” And there was a list of boxes to check with answers like: went directly to my gate, got some food, shopped, etc., and line to put why. I answered:

[x] Went directly to my gate. Why: Because after having to go through security twice there wasn’t time to do anything else.

#1 Son made his own answer:

[x] Went back to security to get hassled some more. Why?: No apparent reason.

We boarded the plane and flew to John Wayne Airport without further problem. I’ll blog about the vacation later, and pics will be up on mommymonster.com just as soon as I get around to it.

Then there was the trip back. I figured it would be like other trips, and things that had flipped out PDX security would be non-issues elsewhere. I figured wrong.

We had an early flight and arrived at John Wayne Airport some time around 7:30 AM. There was a long, long line at the e-ticket machine, so it was a good thing we had plenty of time before our flight. Bording passes finally in hand, we went through the security line up to the point where we would be sent off to an x-ray line. And we got stopped because of The Belt.

The security guard asked us to stand aside. #1 Son handed The Belt over and the guard examined it from every possible angle. “They’re spent shells.” #1 Son said, helpfully. “They can’t be fired.” The guarded nodded and smiled, and said he’d have to ask his supervisor. Oh, yeah, I thought, we’ve been through this before. It will be OK.

The guard called over to someone else, “I have a 9-11 here. I need assistence.” (oh brother I can’t believe they used that as a code.)

After a few minutes, the head-honcho guard came over. Head-honcho had obviously gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that morning. The discussion went something like this:

Head-honcho: You can’t come through the airport with that. We’ll have to confiscate it.

Mom: Confiscate it? Why? They’re all spent shells. They’re hollow. We came down here with it and it was OK.

Guard # 1: (to head-honcho, handing him The Belt) Here. Take a look at it. (to #1 Son) Did you buy this here?

#1 Son: No. I wore it down. Security at the other airport looked at it and said it was OK. I flew down with it on.

Head-honcho: Well you’re not getting out of my airport with it.

#1 Son: But it’s legal. There’s nothing wrong with it.

Mom: (rather desperately) A lot of security people at the other airport looked at it, and in the end they decided that it was OK. You can see that all of the shells are hollow. There are no bullets or anything. They can’t be fired.

Guard #1: Can it be checked through?

Head-honcho: (dirty look towards Guard # 1) I’ll have to make some calls. What airline are you flying?

So I told him what airline, and he picked up one of those white courtesy phones and made a call. I heard him say, “I have a bandolier here.” A bandolier? Oh, come now. Bandoliers are worn by resistence fighters in third-world dictatorships. Punks in urban settings wear bullet belts.

Eventually he returned and said #1 Son could keep The Belt, but it would have to be checked through in baggage. By this time I think Guard # 1 was feeling a little sympathy for us, because he took us back to the guy who was checking IDs and told him to let us directly in to x-ray without having to stand in line again.

So back we went to the airline ticket counter. Of course we had to stand in line there. I told the ticket lady what had happened and showed her The Belt. I said I didn’t want anyone to freak out when they saw it on x-ray. “Don’t worry,” she sighed. “I’m sure they already know about it.”

I hate checking my bag. I really hated checking this one, because it had all of our sovenirs in it. But it had to be my bag because #1 Son’s backpack is in the final stages of disintegration and would probably not survive the gentle touch of airport baggage handlers. And my small carry-on had all of my sundries. I’ve never checked those since the trip long ago when my bag with my sundries was lost for 5 days, courtesy of Hughs Airwest.

Of course by the time we got back to security the ID person had left and a new one had come on duty. But we explained why we were cutting in at the head of the line, and we were allowed to do so. He sent us directly over to an x-ray machine at the side, so we never saw Guard # 1 again. Fortunately we never saw Head-honcho again, either.

At the gate, we had just sat down to wait when someone ran out through the emergency exit and set off an alarm. I only caught a brief glimpse of the guy, but I though it was one of the airline personnel because he was wearing a white shirt and tie and I vaguely remember him fussing around with a keypad by the door before exiting. Beep-beep-beep-beep went the alarm.

Pretty soon three Airport Police with a humongous German Shepard showed up. Oh, great. I thought. This is just what we need. Now they’ll probably close the terminal and we’ll have to go back through security yet again.

The officers determined that someone had gone out and not come in. Two of the officers then went out with the dog to try to track down the perpetrator. The third turned off the alarm and then took statements from witnesses who had seen the man exit.

Under ordinary circumstances I am the most law-abiding of citizens and I would always be glad to state what I had seen. But not this time. This time I decided to fly under the security radar and I just kept my mouth shut.

Either the whole thing turned out to be a false alarm, or going out isn’t as bad as coming in. We were allowed to board our plane and leave on schedule.

Did I mention I hate checking my bag? We got lucky this time. My bag arrived and there was nothing missing from it — including The Belt. I expected 20 or 30 FBI agents to jump out from behind pillars as soon as I picked the bag up (transporting dangerous weapons across state lines), but they never materialized.

I can remember a time before 9-11 when you had to wait after retrieving your bag because a security guard needed to check your receipt to make sure this was really your bag and you really flew with it. There was a barrier between the baggage claim area and the rest of the terminal. There were only a few gates you could go through to get out, and security guards were stationed at each one so you couldn’t exit without proving you had your bag and none other. None of that now. The barriers were down and there wasn’t a guard to be seen. The airlines check who you are and how many bags you check in, but apparently it’s now OK to pick up any bag you want, whether you traveled with it or not. I guess security has all been diverted upstairs to protect outgoing passengers. To hell with incoming.

I realize that we need to have some security. Most of the time I don’t mind too much. But I do really think we could have some reasonable regulations regarding what can and can’t be carried on. And how about common courtesy? I realize that security guards probably get bored because probably nothing much ever happens. But can’t they do their drills on their own time? Why take it out on passengers? Do they only pick on people who are a little “different” looking? Or do they simply pick a random number — say every 20th person through the x-ray — to pick on?

One thing is certain… The Belt will never fly again.

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