[ul]
[li]BB Pistol - My roommate almost put it in my garment bag when I was going to go visit my sister in Oregon. Even though it’s not deadly, it’s considered a weapon. Plus, the stupid thing was made of metal, so at first X-ray it’d look like a real gun.[/li][li]Electric Breast Pump - My wife was carrying it when we went on a recent vacation. Since she had the baby at the time, she didn’t have any problem. On the return flight, I had it, and was questioned and hand scanned. I looked back at the X-ray image, and it did look rather ominous. Plus the thing is all self-contained, with no way to open up the mechanism. I made it through as soon as I showed them the controls and pointed out my wife and daughter.[/li][/ul]
Anyone else have troubles bringing something innocent through security and/or customs?
A utility knife in my purse. It was the one I used at work. I forgot it was in there. They confiscated the blades.
Yes, a Christmas present for my son (turned out to be a plastic airplane) cause quite a bit of concern.
When I went through customs back in the 70’s, I got frisked in Prauge, carefully searched in Romania and questioned extensively back in the US. Guess I looked suspicious.
True Story:
I got stopped in England because I was carrying…
CRAZY GLUE!
!!!
Yes, cyanoacrylate cement. One of those 2 ml containers in an unopened blister pack. Why? I asked. I’m not going to go on a mad spree, gluing the cabin attendants together. It’s an irritant, they said. It’s not even open, I protested. They gave me a receipt. If I came back into Britain within the next two mnths I could claim it.
They didn’t even look at my opened razor blades, or my Boy Scout Knife. But an unopened blister pack of Crazy Glue got confiscated.
My wife thinks that someone at Airport Security just had to glue something.
My mom got taken aside and strip searched once coming back from a trip to Canada. Seems that the cops were a wee-bit curious about that plastic baggie full of white powder she was carrying (Aunt Amy’s homeground buckwheat pancake mix), D’oh!
A friend of mine actually had a backpack he’d simply forgotten in London’s Heathrow airport blown-up by security. I can’t imagine what might be inside it that looked so suspicious. The 'Brit police sure take their security seriously.
Oh, gee whiz, Inky-, that brings to mind the trip we made to my sister’s a few years ago. After returning home I found a plastic storage bag filled with white powder. My sister had nicely labeled it “BORAX” with a marker, but do you think that really would have made a difference if I had been chosen to be searched. I didn’t even know it was in the suitcase! My nice helpful sister, wanted me to have some borax to make some goo for my daughter to play with. I think they sell that in Missouri too! (Done ranting)
My mom and stepfather play bar darts, and one time Mom had her custom set of darts confiscated by airport security.
What was she going to do, play 301 or cricket on the stewardesses’ stomachs?
They likely didn’t look inside the backpack…they announce that if you leave your belongings unattended, they’ll destroy them. They DO take their security seriously.
My little brother tried to get on with an obviously plastic toy gun once. They wouldn’t let him keep it, even tucked away and with my father’s word it wouldn’t come out. He cried the entire way from St. Louis to Frankfurt…I wonder what the passengers would have considered worse?
Me too, only it was rubber cement that I used to protect the cork on my Birkenstock sandals. Something about it being flammable…
Though I understand plastic explosives can be put into a tube like that (that is, if James Bond has taught me anything).
I know someone who got a birthday present for my cousin, and the airport guys took it. sarcasm on/I mean, what’s so harmful about a shotgun?\sarcasm off
They never let ANY type of gun toy or not on planes in the passenger part. my brother had a wooden toy gun taken away because of it. I did get stopped once because the guy I was with had a can of shaving cream in his bag! they made him take the whole bag apart to show it to them. almost missed the plane.
A Leatherman Pocket Tool…
Went through security at DFW, Atlanta, O’Haire, St. Louis, Memphis, and both airports in Houston and never heard a word from security - they didn’t even give it a second look. On the RETURN leg of a round trip I was stopped by Dulles Airport Security and given a thorough shakedown. Frisked, asking lots of questions about why I was carrying a ‘dagger’ (the blade is less than 3 inches or so), searched my backpack, held my luggage and used a chemical ‘sniffer’ to detect the presence of flammable (sp?) liquids or plastic explosives. All the while I was asking if it was such a big damn deal why I was never stopped at any other airport. They finally let me on the plane with it and said ‘don’t ever do it again’.
My dad is a chemist so all his shoes are steel toed safety shoes (you don’t really want acid eating through your shoe leather) and set off metal detectors. Generally, he just takes his shoes off and walks through or tells them and when they use the stick and it is indeed the shoes that set it off they let him go.
Once when I was about 13 I made the mistake of commenting “You could have anything hidden in there” in the hearing of the security guy. He just gave me a really dirty look and my father told me not to ever joke about that when they could hear me. In retrospect–there’s not a whole lot you could fit in your shoes that would be dangerous–but you could smuggle drugs pretty easily I would imagine.
My mom had her knitting needles confiscated by airport security. I guess they were afraid she’d make a scarf and strangle the pilot.
Well, before travelling on the Eurotunnel between London and Paris, my wife and I almost had a Travel Scrabble set confiscated. They have a fancy X-Ray machine that allows them to see if there are any concealed compartments in your luggage. On the machine, the space formed by the folded set showed up. They had us open that. Then someone was suspicious that there might be drugs in the bag which contained the tiles. We had to open that, too, and, for further measure, customs looked at every single one of the tiles.
Of course, that was on the way from London to Paris. On the return trip, French customs didn’t even bat an eye. We could have taken a chainsaw on board, and they would not have noticed.
It was either in Munich or Berlin…
I had a bottle of Cologne. A Halston Brand.
Well, as I went through security, the guards flipped. They pulled me over, and pointed at my bags.
I reached inside, and pulled out the cologne, which is what they were interested in.
The name of the cologne was CATALYST. It came in a bottle shaped like a test-tube. They saw that, and thought thay had an explosive or chemical agent on their hands. They finally let me go when I told them to smell it.
What a day.
I wear one of these pretty much all the time, but was never sure what airport security would think about it so I try to avoid having it with me when I fly. Apparently, the response to finding one can vary greatly. 
I was dropping a good friend off at Los Angeles International a few years ago, and decided to walk in and keep him company until he boarded. I was wearing a large sweatshirt that hung below my beltline, and had completely forgotten that I had my Leatherman on.
I set off the metal detector on two passes, and was wondering to myself what it was finding - even this did not jog my brain as to the Leatherman’s presence. Perhaps disturbingly, what seemed like a pretty thorough wand search did not find the metal object attached to my belt. They passed me on and I thought nothing more about it.
Not until I was leaving, at least. As I was walking out to my car, my arm brushed up against it and I was finally(!) reminded of its presence. I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or not that they hadn’t found it.
I always carry a fairly mean looking pocket knife, but have absolutely never been stopped for it.
My dad has the best story though. He was going on a business trip outside of the US, and wanted to bring some cookies along. The kind that come in a package with two or four rows of cookies in the little plastic tray. And an alarm clock.
Airport security was not amused.
Hmmm…sounds like the plot of 12 Monkeys.