False Positive? Or What?

At our hotel room, I snapped a photo of the contents of my suitcase.  Boring to some!  To a doll person and KNITTER, it's heaven on earth!!  

It is 6:10 AM on an ordinary Tuesday at DIA. Going through check point, we both receive palm swabs. I don't remember the woman wearing gloves. She (#1) puts the cloth into the ETD reader. This is supposed to be “random” and yes I've had this done at prior airports in the past.

Ungloved Worker alerts second TSA (#2) that “he is ok, but she is not,” and he arrives wearing gloves. I ask Ungloved what it means. She said I have some chemicals on my hands and they are common and could be from anything. Well! I used my hands this morning to apply erythromycin to my eye wound due to Mohs surgery on Oct. 1 and am a bit nervous that I could have infected my eye! It never crossed my mind that the alert was for explosives residue!

This guy arrives, all fakey happy, and asks me to follow him. Hubby asks Fake Happy (#2) if he can follow us, “you can go on ahead if you want, or follow her.” Hubby followed us. Fake Happy put two bins on the conveyor belt, and I placed my luggage right behind. He looked at me and said, “do you have any liquids, have you ever flown before?” I jumped into action, took out my baggie of liquids, took off shoes, and removed jacket, worried about my lose driver's license that was not yet returned to my wallet..................

Fake Happy told me to “go ahead and he would push my bins” so I entered the scanner, lifted arms, and as usual, nothing reacted.

Fake Happy was there to quickly retrieve my luggage and two bins, and asked me to follow him. I'm still in socks and no jacket.

Fake Happy takes me to a table and places my items on it, introduces me to StoneFace (#3) and tells me that StoneFace is a really nice guy. Then #2 departs.

StoneFace is wearing gloves, makes no eye contact, no hello, nothing. He begins to unzip my luggage, has it unzipped, and then asks, while looking at the contents, if I have anything sharp in there, any needles. I respond truthfully that I have knitting needles in the pink zippered case. He swabs again and again, using countless cloths, inside and outside of my shoes, along the sides of the interior of the suitcase, opening every zippered compartment but not swabbing my Ann Estelle doll, nor clothing, nor toothbrush, nor mouth guard. Jeff says something and I can't hear well due to our distance from one another and the din of the airport. I take two steps towards him and say, “I can;t hear.” StoneFace quickly demands, “come back here, stand right there. “

(I notice another Gramma at a distance, having her items swabbed, and she has her feet planted on “feet” within a painted circle on the floor. Two Grammas at the same time setting off the ETD reader?!)

StoneFace swabs for about 8 minutes, then looks up and beacons #4, Simple, to be an “assist.” Simple approaches, somehow all my items are transferred to a bench outside a room with a door. Simple is wearing gloves and enters and stands in one corner, looking at the floor. I stand in the doorway and Jeff and I look at one another.

#5 arrives, a woman wearing one pair of gloves, and donning pair number 2, reeking of cigarette smoke and advising that she will conduct a pat down. Do I have any medical appliances or does anything hurt. Am I wearing a belt? “No, no, and no.” With every word from Smoker, I get blasted with stinky smoker's breath so I hold my breath. Smoker closes the door, announces where she will start the pat down, (oh so stinky!!) and conducts a full search, including the waistband of my slacks. When finished, Smoker asks me to sit, to lift my feet, and she swabs the soles of my hand knit socks. She opens the door and announces, “you are free to go.”

I finally get to insert my driver's license into my wallet, don shoes and jacket, and greet my wonderful husband without getting reprimanded.

Just for fun, I googled about these procedures and how much these 5 folks get paid!!! Horrible! The workers are not paid to think, just to follow rote procedures. I was not advised that Hubby had the right to be in the pat down room with me.  I would have preferred that.  Yes, there are false positives! Yes, elderly folks have been strip searched in the past. I've heard it on the news and read it on line. Horrible!

So, in my case, false positive? We hold hands a lot, so why didn't his hands trigger anything? What is the “chemical” as reported by #1? Our world is full of chemicals! At Mass on Monday morning, did I share a handshake of peace with a hunter? Did the yarn I knit trigger anything? There's aloe, hemp, bamboo, soy, crabshell...... lots of fun ingredients in yarn!

Since this incident, we tend to wash our hands more frequently and sing the “top and bottom, top and bottom, in between”.......... song that the two oldest grandchildren taught us. In addition, I do believe my flying days are numbered. Who needs this nonsense?????

There is no place like home!!