So the lady made us wait for a few minutes while my daughter, who is 14 and hasn’t been on a plane since she was 4, started getting freaked out. Then she finally got her bag and opened it and searched it very thoroughly while asking us about whether or not she had any sharp objects.
She dresses punky despite loving Hello Kitty and she packed some spiked jewelry, so we thought maybe that was it.
It was not.
It was her deodorant.
The lady pulled out her deodorant, took it over to some special station where she did some sort of chemical analysis, and then gave it back and told us to zip up her case and leave.
Thanks for protecting the airport from dangerous deodorant, TSA! Great job!
I work at an airport as a mobility assistant. What this means is I push people in wheelchairs all day. I go through TSA about 50 times per week doing this exact ritual.
What surprises me about this is that they gave your deodorant back. What I see is they give you two choices.
A) Surrender the object that they deem suspicious (either deodorant, lotion, shampoo, water, or gels/creams). By surrendering it, they basically just throw it away.
Or B) you can be escorted to ticketing desk of your airline by a TSA agent. From there, you have to convince them to give you your bag back to put a stick of deodorant back in. This involves them radioing the grounds crew, halting the bag loading of the entire plane, looking for your bag, and then bringing it back. This whole process takes about an hour. And very well could cause you to miss your flight.