Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label TSA. Show all posts

Monday, November 24, 2008

San Diego Monday

by Pa Rock


Nick and I spent a couple of hours today touring the USS Midway, an Aircraft Carrier that is pulling retirement duty as a museum in the San Diego Harbor. The Midway has numerous aircraft that saw service from the Korean War through Desert Storm. The Carnival Cruise Ship Elation was anchored in the neighboring berth. That is the ship that Molly and Scott will take on their honeymoon.

Molly and Scott arrived this afternoon, and Nick and I got to Coronado in time to help them take their luggage to their room. Then we hustled over to the airport and picked up Tim and Erin. So hail, hail, the gang's all here!

Two interesting things happened at the airport. We were in McDonald's waiting on them to butcher a cow and make our sandwiches, when a distinguished looking gentleman wearing a suit and carrying an expensive briefcase walked up to the counter and ordered a hamburger. "Just a hamburger." He told the crew kids. The girl at the counter told him that would be two dollars and four cents. The interesting thing about that encounter is that I can remember when a McDonald's hamburger was fifteen cents! And from the look on the customer's face, he could too!

The other incident of note happened when we accompanied Tim and Erin to the luggage carousel. I saw what appeared to be some litter on the floor. As I looked it over, the litter came into focus as a crumpled up twenty dollar bill. I quickly bent over and snatched it up. After a careful scan of the environs, I determined that no one was stumbling around looking for their money, and, more importantly, there did not appear to be some film crew doing a "candid camera" piece - or a psychology professor doing honesty research. The three alternatives as I saw it were to give the twenty dollar bill to TSA (aka Public Enemy #1), wave it around in the air yelling "Hey, did anyone lose a twenty?", or avoid the public melee by putting it in my pocket. I chose door number three.

Goodnight from San Diego.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

My Next Career

,
by Pa Rock

This morning while running the obstacle course at the San Antonio Airport I discovered that I have a talent for smuggling. As I was dumping the contents of my pockets into the plastic tubs, I suddenly remembered that I had forgotten to eat my breakfast bar.

"Piso mojado!" I exclaimed, causing every Spanish speaker within ear shot to look at their feet. I dropped the bar into the bin, resigned to the fact that a TSA employee would be enjoying my breakfast in a few minutes.

And sure enough, all hell broke loose as my three tubs (computer, shoes, books, etc) went through the x-ray machine. A little fascista came marching up to me holding the tub that contained my breakfast bar.

"Is this yours, Senor?"

"Si, Senor. Es mio."

He reached into one of my plastic bags in the tub and pulled out half a bottle of water. "You can't take this?"

"Piso mojado," I mumbled, and he looked at his feet. The little man from TSA kept the water that I had forgotten about, and me and my breakfast bar headed toward the plane.

Viva la revolucion!