# Searching Luggage: Sanitary? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 9, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169 "2006-01-09T16:26:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 18\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Nickrz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/bbce88/32.png) [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/21 "2006-01-10T20:41:28Z")
What about all the filth and bacteria they _leave in your suitcase_ on the little card they deposit to show they’ve rifled and fingered yer dainties?! What if the man (or woman) just whacked off and had semen on their hands/gloves/nose and got it smack dab in the crotch of your shorts and you got pregnant!? (Assuming female searchee). What about when they don’t have the key for your particular bag and they break / force the lock? When was the last time those lock-picking tools saw the inside of an autoclave? Really. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/22 "2006-01-10T21:22:50Z")
Allright, already. Got the point, folks. I intentionally didn’t post in the debate or pit forums, where ridicule and psychiatric diagnoses happen. I just asked for info. Crimeny! Can we just end the thread now? ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [January 10, 2006, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/23 "2006-01-10T23:24:31Z")
> [@acsenray](#): > > Someone was passing around an article in the office that the most germ-laden objects in an office are keyboards and telephones. Or articles being passed around an office? Seriously, though…the amount of cross contamination would be minimal at best. They probably breath more germs onto your stuff than they will transfer from the previous bag. One of the nice traits of most disposable gloves is that bacteria don’t really stick to them. I put my hands into your food without gloves and the government is fine with that so I doubt the TSA is going to worry about touching your clothes with “dirty” gloves. ---
**Author:** ![K364](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/k364/32/5_2.png) [@K364](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/K364)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/24 "2006-01-11T00:54:38Z")
**BrightPenny** - I’m with you 100% I don’t know why you are getting so many “other peoples excrement doesn’t scare me” responses. ---
**Author:** ![Scarlett67](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scarlett67/32/7387_2.png) [@Scarlett67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scarlett67)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/25 "2006-01-11T01:29:09Z")
Geez, doesn’t anyone have an immune system anymore? If you’re (generic you) worried about germs from the inspectors’ gloves, you’d better grow all your own food, too, to avoid the government-allowed 12 ratshit parts per billion in your can of Spaghettio’s. Now that oughta keep you awake at night. I don’t go around seeking other people’s feces either, but I also accept that Life Has Germs. I even keep my toothbrush out in the open in the same room as the TOILET! I kiss the top of my dog’s head with my LIPS! (Not on her lips, though, and not because of germs but because her breath is worse than mine.) The horror. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/26 "2006-01-11T01:49:54Z")
> [@K364](#): > > **BrightPenny** - I’m with you 100% > > I don’t know why you are getting so many “other peoples excrement doesn’t scare me” responses. We’re more saying Shit happens and the amounts in which it happens vary and in the general scheme of the amount of shit that can happen, the amount of shit transferred from a stranger’s ass to a stranger’s Jockeys to a stranger’s luggage to the TSA screeners gloved hands to your luggage is low on the shitometer. I think you would have a valid arguement if a fellow traveller was packing an actual measurable quantity of shit that became smeared on the screener’s gloves and the gloves weren’t changed before the screener used your Jockeys as a finger towel. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/27 "2006-01-11T02:08:59Z")
> [@xbuckeye](#): > > I think you would have a valid arguement if a fellow traveller was packing an actual measurable quantity of shit that became smeared on the screener’s gloves and the gloves weren’t changed before the screener used your Jockeys as a finger towel. The point is: I didn’t didn’t post an argument. This is not a debate thread, nor a pit thread. Mods, second time now: Please close this thread. This is just fucking ridiculous. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/28 "2006-01-11T02:12:37Z")
Is the point of these posts to shut down members from speaking their thoughts? If so, then you’ll just end up with a core group of assholes arguing the same issues over and over. So much for courtesy. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/29 "2006-01-11T02:21:55Z")
> [@brightpenny](#): > > Employees wear gloves and handle underwear and whatever else they find within a suitcase. They **do not** change gloves between suitcases. That means that the filth from some stranger’s dirty underwear, or whatever, is being smeared onto my things. Your OP wasn’t phrased in the form of a simple question. It was phrased in the form of a paranoid rant. This board is dedicated to fighting ignorance. Germophobia is a common form of ignorance that needs to be addressed. It is an example of a little knowledge being misapplied. People were merely responding to your somewhat hysterical tone. A discussion more fitting of GQ perhaps would be what types of daily germ transfer mechanisms actually put people at risk verus those that just send people into hysteria based on superficial features. ---
**Author:** ![wonderlust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonderlust/32/7237_2.png) [@wonderlust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonderlust)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/30 "2006-01-11T02:24:23Z")
Hysterical rant? Please. Consider this member gone for good. Shame. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/31 "2006-01-11T02:33:40Z")
> [@brightpenny](#): > > Is the point of these posts to shut down members from speaking their thoughts? If so, then you’ll just end up with a core group of assholes arguing the same issues over and over. > > So much for courtesy. No, the point is to discuss with an open mind and you failed that test at your second or third post. A bunch of people who know more about the topic than you told you not to worry and your reply was to beg for the the thread to be closed. Thanks for trying. ---
**Author:** ![3.885AM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/58956e/32.png) [@3.885AM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3.885AM)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/32 "2006-01-11T03:59:23Z")
I work both baggage and checkpoint for the TSA at a Cat-X airport. We do, in fact, change gloves quite frequently. Not always between each bag, but usually so. Even at a busy terminal there is a break between bags, and the gloves are uncomfortable, so they come off right away. ---
**Author:** ![xbuckeye](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9e8a1a/32.png) [@xbuckeye](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xbuckeye)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/33 "2006-01-11T19:16:26Z")
> [@3.885AM](#): > > I work both baggage and checkpoint for the TSA at a Cat-X airport. We do, in fact, change gloves quite frequently. Not always between each bag, but usually so. Even at a busy terminal there is a break between bags, and the gloves are uncomfortable, so they come off right away. So…you open a bag and there is something gross in it. You change your gloves or go to the next bag with gross on your gloves? (Admit it…you keep a pile of feces under the counter to smear on people’s under-lovelies when nobody is looking) ---
**Author:** ![Uvula\_Donor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e19adc/32.png) [@Uvula\_Donor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uvula_Donor)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/34 "2006-01-11T20:27:20Z")
> [@brightpenny](#): > > Hysterical rant? Please. > > Consider this member gone for good. Shame. Would you mind wiping down the doorknob as you leave? It’s got your _filthy germs_ all over it. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 8:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/35 "2006-01-11T20:37:58Z")
> [@tremorviolet](#): > > Do you ever shake hands with anyone? How do you know they wash their hands? What if they washed their hands but the guy they just shook hands with didn’t? What if that dollar bill you just got as change was in a wallet that accidently fell in a toilet? And was dried off and then used to buy a burger? By a guy who doesn’t wash his hands? > > You know, at some point, you either have to let it go or go live in a bubble with Howard Hughes. Hence, the movement toward not shaking hands. I’m not much of a germophobe. I know that some occupations demand a higher standard, and if I had one of those jobs, I’d be sure to disinfect, but for day to day life, I just haven’t found it to be an issue. I’m never sick, my husband is never sick, and we exercise just average hand-washing hygeine. We don’t use disinfectant soaps. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/36 "2006-01-11T20:41:17Z")
A Howard Hughes-esque meltdown. In GQ. Glad I re-subscribed. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/37 "2006-01-11T21:31:19Z")
\ Let me come in and spread my nasty Mod germs everywhere. Thread closed. \ ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [January 11, 2006, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169/38 "2006-01-11T23:22:11Z")
**brightpenny**. Just in case you revisit this thread, a piece of advice. If you want a thread closed, hit the “report this post” button at the top right of the post. It looks like an exclamation point in a triangle. You can’t find one in your own post, but hitting one in someone else’s is OK. That’s the best way to get us to close a thread. **samclem** GQ moderator [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/searching-luggage-sanitary/339169.md?page=1)