http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x6121056Oh my.
The shadowy primitive, who's trying to get social security disability because he's "too depressed" to work for a living:
shadowknows69 (1000+ posts) Wed Jul-22-09 07:38 AM
Original message
My mother is home safely back from UK/France and 2/3 of my gifts were confiscated at the airport.
Mom has traveled abroad many times, but she's getting on (one of those 70 year old, white, grandmother terrorists) and forgets to follow the post 9/11 regulations at times. Which seem to be enforced haphazardly according to her experience.
Lost- One jar of jam from Stonehenge and one letter opener from a castle she visited.
Saved- My container of sand from The Beaches of Normandy
She tried to take all these on in her carry on. The letter opener was kind of a no duh, but apparently it would have been legal in her regular baggage as it was clearly from a souvenir shop, but the baggage had already been dealt with before so they just kept it. This happened immediately at Heathrow as she was coming back. The jar of jam didn't alarm anyone until she got back to the United States of Paranoia.
So she made it from Heathrow to Dulles with the jam and sand, which was in a plastic water bottle, the jam being in a "Stonehengy" jar; and it was only going from Dulles to Syracuse Airport that they stopped her on the jelly because it was a "Gel" so of course could be bomb making material. Now I don't pretend to know airport protocol but it seems to me they could have just run it by one of those expensive drug/bomb sniffing dogs and let mom keep it, but again, it would have been fine had she remembered to pack it in regular baggage. Or so they told her.
Mom was so mad at this she said she almost demanded they smash the jar in front of her because she figured someone would end up just keeping it for themselves at the end of the day. Probably good that she held her tongue.
Somehow though a plastic bottle of sand, which to me could potentially be something more insidious than two sealed items from a gift shop got through no problem. Could have been a bottle full of brown heroin or gunpowder for all they knew because she said they gave her zero resistance or inquiry on that item. I guess it wasn't something the workers wanted to take home with them?
Just can't help but wonder how much of this goes on that isn't in the interest of security but more for personal gain. Some unknowing or inattentive tourists can sure bring back some nice, but suspicious stuff.
Without a doubt my mother didn't follow guidelines and she admits that, but I think there should be some allowance for at least letting people mail these things to themselves or something after they've been checked out as opposed to just taking them out of hand.
Reason #3752 why I'll never fly again
I'm glad I got my sand though.
franksolich is intensely curious about something here.
Actually, a couple of things.
What mother would bring back, for her beloved son, souvenirs such as a jar of jam, a 40p "souvenir" letter-opener, and some sand?
And what's special about jam from Stonehenge?
It's a big and entertaining bonfire, well worth getting out the boat.
