Friday, December 15, 2006

Happy traveling!

For you holiday travelers, I would like to recount an incident that happened to me at the Oakland airport several months ago, which I was reminded of by an entry in Strip Mining for Whimsy where he says the TSA security guys are thieves.

INT. - OAKLAND AIRPORT SECURITY LINE

I unload my laptop into one bin, my shoes, wallet, watch and change into another, and send 'em through.

On the other side, I pick it all up again, but -- hey, wait a minute...

ME: Hey, excuse me, where's my watch? Hey... excuse me, I put my watch in my shoes when it went through and it's not here.

SECURITY GUY 1: What? Whatever. (Shrugs, walks away.)

ME: Hey! My watch is *missing.* Where's my watch?!

SECURITY GUY 2 (utterly bored voice): Anybody see a watch?

(No reponse.)

I look around and see there's a little podium about 20 feet away with an Okaland Police Dept. logo and a cop standing there.

ME: Excuse me -- police! Could you come over here? (He comes over.) (Really loud:) I put my watch in my shoes on the front side and now it's not here. These guys *stole my watch.*

COP (bored): Anybody find a watch?

SECURITY GUY 2 (five seconds later): This it?

ME (still loud): Oh yeah! Here it is! Wonder what happened to it? (To cop:) This happen a lot here?

(Everyone walks away.)

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