The coffee in my carry-on raised a red flag at airport security. Two security guards ushered me and my bag over to a private stall so they could open my luggage and take a peek inside.
There was another traveler at a stall next to mine. As we were getting our hands swabbed, he made sure to lock eyes with me and roll them around in his head like, “Can you believe this?!” The way white guys do when made to suffer the injustice and indignity of a standard security check.
I watched as two TSA agents pulled knife after knife from his bag. And these weren’t just pocket knives. These were fuck-off, attack-New-York knives. In the hands of a child, they could pass for a sword. Or, at least, a machete that isn’t messing around. There were eight knives in total, spread out on a table.
Such a pile of weaponry at an airport was radioactive.
I was as shocked as the security guards.
“Sir,” one of the guards said cautiously, holding up his latex glove hands as if bracing to stop a locomotive. “You can’t bring these on the plane. Did you even read the list of prohibited items?”
“Yeah but,” said the traveling sociopath. “These are just knives. What seems to be the issue?”
The TSA agents looked at each other, then back at him, sideways. They seemed unimpressed, their expressions indicating they’d been well steeped in the casual wickedness of grumpy travelers who, if properly motivated, were capable of grounding an airliner with only a grape—much less his murderous bouquet of knives. The TSA guards could sense the argument into which they were inexorably being pulled.
The TSA agents looked exhausted to hear another riot act from a Mr. So-and-so who should be allowed on the plane with [item everybody knows isn’t allowed on a plane].
Predictably, the pushy butcher escalated the situation. “Now, come on,” he said, making for his belongings. “I have a flight to catch. With my tools, thank you very much.”
I have to say, I admired the guy’s approach—coming in hot with the big pressure—as if the specter of inconvenience caused by his missed flight would persuade these two federal agents to yield and allow him and his collection of deadly cutlery to board a pressurized tube, packed—stern to bow—with people meat.
My bag of coffee was placed in a scanner and wiped down, presumably for bomb-making residue. It turned out to be just coffee (thank God). The agent returned it to my bag and bade me a pleasant trip.
The sky-slasher saw this little transaction. He seemed indignant, poised on the cusp of raising hell.
But he said nothing. He had some big decisions to make, and in a hurry too. Either he could take his knives and miss his flight. (Maybe he could ship them to his destination?) Or, he could stop being weird and get on the plane like a normal person, without his dumbass knives.