"Sleep well, America... Your TSA is on the job!"
Well, we got Deborah Leigh to the airport, at least (LAX, United terminal). Thank you so much to everybody who chipped in to get Deborah home for the funeral.
Then the TSA stepped in.
Now understand, Deborah Leigh is about four and a half feet tall. She can walk maybe fifty feet unassisted because of knee injuries she sustained in the Army (second to last cycle of WAC's before they phased them out.) She's in an airport wheelchair being pushed by an airline attendant.
So TSA descends on this obvious security threat, pulls her aside for a search... and discovers, to the nation's horror, that she's carrying a nonregulation amount of toothpaste. This offense against All That Is Decent and True and Paid Too Much to Wear a Cheap Blue Blazer cannot stand. So they want her to wheel all the way back down to check in, secure the menacing hygiene product in an approved manner, check the bag in, and then get trundled back through the whole security process all over again. Apparently the task of securing the toothpaste and the luggage then and there is beyond the skills of our crack gate guardians, and besides, they don't keep the security zip ties up where the security searches are actually done.
How do I know this? I know this because I got a phone call from Deborah half an hour before her flight as she's sitting there literally surrounded by these dimwitted dogberries and cloth-headed catchpoles, loudly informing me that she's not giving up her toothpaste and loudly informing them that her boyfriend's a blogger and he's going to tell the world about this (Note: Hello, again, Janet Napolitano) while I tell her to just throw the toothpaste away. But Deborah's very particular about her toothpaste...
UPDATE: After a fun evening without a word after that, I learn this morning that Deborah is safe on the ground in Philadelphia. We did our job, gang. Philadelphia.... well, Philly's on its own.
In retrospect, I feel a little guilty now about joking, "She's Homeland Security's problem now," after I finished scheduling and booking her flights...
I'm keeping the bleg going for the time being.(UPDATE: BLEG FINISHED. THANK YOU) Deb's tickets are squared away coming and going, but I'd like to see if we can't put up a couple of bucks to help balance lost work days she really can't afford — also, in case any of you in the tiny minority that's ever been hassled by TSA wants to show a little solidarity...
Yes, sleep well, America...
