Red Flag. Right here. Me. This lady.
Obviously that was the vibe I emitted in the New Orleans airport recently.
Flying there, airport security had been no problem. Smiling TSA agents nodded and waved! Hey girl, how ya doin’? You keep your shoes on, honey, you’re good to go. Nice hair, have a great flight, send a postcard.
Flying out of the Crescent City, not so much.
TSA attention in the Big Easy
I stood in the security line ahead of a young mother with a child and a mountain of baby paraphernalia. After depositing my shoes and belongings into a bin and my carry-on bag onto the metal rollers that would propel it through the X-ray tunnel, I helped the woman with her stuff, because once a mother, always a mother (“No dear, like this. See? It will fit better.”)
She rolled her eyes (because once a daughter, always a daughter) but thanked me as we inched along the familiar process. As soon as my bag went through X-ray the TSA agent, whom at first I thought was real cute in a George Clooney kind of way, said, “Step to the side, please, ma’am,” and his Freddy Krueger tone set off my paranoia alarm.
Oh, oh. This is not gonna be good.
Next came the pat down. George/Freddy summoned a TSA female who was all business. Arched eyebrow, straight face, hardly any lips showing, like Judge Judy when she’s had it “up to here.” Big deal, I’ve been TSA frisked before, but when she finished I realized that my bag was attracting a lot of TSA attention.
“Is there a problem?” I asked.
Judge Judy’s right eyebrow arched even higher. “Over here,” she said, moving me away from the penguin-stepping flow of travelers who buckled belts and stumbled into their shoes all the while pretending to pay no attention to my little drama but trying to memorize my face so that when they saw me on the news they’d be able to point and say, “OMG! I stood right next to her!” The young mother I’d helped pushed her stroller away fast, I’m sure to avoid guilt by association.
Some sweet treat
Oh yes, there was a problem. While in New Orleans, I’d purchased an 8-ounce container of vanilla-infused cinnamon sugar called Sweet Treat for my husband who likes it on his toast. That was what set off alarms. Not the red-hot bayou-blend jambalaya spices or the canister of “Slap Ya Mama” cajun seasoning. It was the sugar.
The offending, unopened sugar was in the possession of a high-level TSA agent who held it as if it were a hand grenade while he spoke on the phone and flipped through a TSA manual. Another female agent arrived for a “friendlier” frisking and explained how and where it would happen — pretty much everywhere! — and asked if I’d like to go to a private room. I said, “No. Do it. Just do it.” (But no New York attitude. I said it in a nice way.)
All during that encounter, I focused on the man with my sugar as he and other agents huddled, trying to decide if they should send me to prison and in which state. It was Judge Judy who finally said, “We have to confiscate that sugar.” By then I was happy to hand over the sugar, all my worldly goods, and that young mother’s baby.
“Fine!” I said, “Keep it!” and reached for my bag but she stopped me. “No. You can’t leave, yet.” Apparently, it wasn’t just the sugar being detained. At that moment the voice in my head shouted, “Scram! Make a run for it!” and while I considered in which direction to bolt, the TSA agent with the manual explained that I could keep the sugar after all, but not in my carry-on.
It would have to be placed in checked baggage, and then I, of course, would simply pass through the security process again. “Big Easy peasy,” he said.
When my husband met me at the airport, I recounted my harrowing story of how I barely escaped the slammer and he asked to see the offending sugar. I gave him my best Judge Judy arched eyebrow. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“Doin’ Time in the Big Easy” is Joanne Sherman’s latest Off the Cuff column for the Gazette. Read her earlier posts here. And look for a new post from her every other Tuesday (or so).
