Sometimes Travel is Just Plain Surreal

Jeanne Marie Hoffman April 20, 2015 Flights Leave a comment

I had a 5am departure this morning out of Dallas, so I woke up a little bit before 3am to make sure I made it to the airport on time.

By the way, I’m a huge fan of sketch comedy and a huge fan of Kids in the Hall and other shows that embrace absurdist humor.

So anyway, I go through PreCheck and as I’m grabbing my bag, I turn around and see a cowboy, in full cowboy regalia, go through the metal detector and set it off.

He looked surprised and when the TSA agent walked over, she seemed a bit overwhelmed. Â “Is it my hat?” he asked.

She instructed him to take his watch off. Â And he started to go through. Â But she stopped him and suggested he might want to take his belt buckle off. Â Then stopped him and suggested he remove his hat. Â And then his boots.

But one at a time, so it sort of played out like this video:

I’m not making fun of him for not knowing what to take through security. Â But I did get a laugh at the agent only telling him one item at a time, studying him, stopping him from going through, and adding items to her list.

I once set off the scanner when I was in a sundress with a metal zipper. Â It had no pockets or anything.

I got a “ma’am, you need to empty your pockets.” Â When I pointed out that I had no pockets at all, the agent froze for aÂ bit, not sure what to tell me to do next. Â Eventually, we both burst out laughing at the silence.