and certainly not negating any difficulties anyone has going through security procedures here or abroad, I travel, mostly internationally, about a dozen times each year.
While I think the whole airport security thing is an absolute joke, I have almost no trouble at all.
Many TSA people are downright friendly. Some are bossy, some show little respect for the people they are supposed to be serving, moving as slowly as they possibly can as if bored to death ( I am sure they are). And then there are the real assholes.. like in life...
Most of my problems arise from procedural fuck ups.. like --
1- kiosks in Toronto, refusing to print out a baggage tracking label, thus forcing me to carry on a bag and having to throw out stuff.
2- being told, when finally reaching the head of the security line in Newark that my connecting boarding pass issued in Rome is not good, forcing me to go back to the check in counter, get in line again, bully my way past everybody so I can make a flight, etc etc
3-Being taken out of the customs and immigration line in Oslo and questioned by the police because I could not remember the name of the town of the person I was going to visit and they thought my profession was fake. (He was waiting for me at arrivals so the cops called his mobile and he vouched for me. )) :>
)
4-Being 'searched' leaving Amsterdam because I arrived, running like a madman, at the gate like 2 minutes before departure. ( Don't ever mess around with Dutch security.)
5- Having too few customs agent on hand at Incheon arrivals because of some scheduling mess up. ( It still is considered the best airport in the world, and I can understand why.)
I am also lucky in that I fly out of a medium sized regional airport with only 20 gates, which is 10 more than they need, so sometimes, depending on my flight times, there is almost nobody on the security line.
Of course the food is better in the LA basin, the Bay area and Manhattan than where I live, so there is that.
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