LAX Security Incident

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Short story long..

LAX is a crazy place, being as its huge, busy, and confusing, forcing me to be a little on edge constantly making sure I don't do anything unintentionally stupid. If you know me well you'll know sometimes stupid happens to me in crazy ways, even after attempting to mitigate all angles of it.

This story is no exception to that law which seems to plague me where ever I seem to go. I don't question it anymore, but rather revel in it's insolubility. It's not bad luck, it's entertainment.

I return my rental car, take a shuttle to terminal two of LAX and check in my bag with WestJet counter. They send me to another place where I have to leave my tagged bag into a special bag pre-screening xray, I am asked for my boarding pass there, I show it. I then leave with my carry on (laptop bag) and head for the gates.

Before arriving at security, I am pre-screened for boarding pass again at the elevators leading up to security. At the top of the elevators I am checked again for my boarding pass and told which line to stand in. While in line I pass a table where again I am checked AGAIN for my boarding pass and asked the "fluid" question, to which I reply no.. no fluids. Ok.. very good carry on. I am now putting my metals in the bin, laptop removed and shoes off. I leave my boarding pass IN MY BAG thinking.. there is no way they need to CHECK IT AGAIN.. IS THERE? Apparently I was incorrect in that line of thinking, as my bag was going through the guy asks me for my boarding pass, I mention that it was in my bag in the xray. He lets out a big sigh and shouts "ATTENTION LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR BOARDING PASSES READY FOR INSPECTION AND DO NOT, I REPEAT DO NOT LEAVE THEM IN YOUR BAGS" Then he mentions something about "NO BOARDING PASS ON LANE SIX.. CODE (blah blah blah)" Now I'm on edge. He tells me to wait behind the red line, so I do, but that's it no more instructions, so I wait while others behind me proceed. Nothing seems to be happening and my bag, shoes, laptop and boarding pass are still on the otherside of the warzone, piling up on the end with the others. What happens next happens very fast.. and I almost got shot.

A very friendly old man who was behind me had some sympathy for my case and decided to take it upon HIMSELF to mitigate the security checkpoint to RETRIEVE my boarding pass. He goes through security, goes back to collect his goods and then points to my bag and looks at me with a question on his face like to say 'Is this your bag?' I had no idea what he was about to do, but I thought that if I shook my head, he would just continue to point at bags, so I nod. Mistake. He grabs the bag and walks towards me. Now you have to understand, the security at LAX is like a fortress, nothing like what you find in Canada. If you don't exactly what your asked you go to jail. So enter slow motion. This old guy who already cleared security is reversing back and coming towards me with MY BAG in his hands. It was a miracle he made it as far as he did. He made it all the way to the six foot high plexiglass wall which separated unsecure zone (me) and secure zone (him) and then tried to PASS ME MY BAG OVER THE GLASS. I am holding up my hands in a NOOOOOOOOO expression, but I think he understood it as HURRY THROW ME THE BAG BEFORE THEY SEE.. Holy shit. Enter super slow motion. Someone somewhere hits a big red button (I didn't see the button, but i'm pretty sure it's big.. and bright red.) an alarm starts whooping, and an obviously well rehearsed sequence of events begins to unfold before my eyes. All eyes on me, my bag, and an old guy, The bag is exactly on the top of the glass and I am TRYING to push it back towards him in a DON'T GIVE ME THE BAG kind of way, but he is confused.. thinking, WHY DON'T YOU WANT YOUR BAG?? So now. it looks like that I am HANDING AN OLD GUY A BAG THAT HASN'T BEEN SECURED. Before I could say anything there was a guy on me, a guy on the old guy and two guys on my bag. All security belts stopped all people stopped. We are all stop. As I was waiting for the tazer to nail me in the back the old guy throws me under the bus.. "ITS NOT MY BAG!!!" He says in a freak out kind of way as he is being led to a secure room. I go to a little special place as well, and my bag comes in a few minutes later. I ask the guard to make sure my MacBook is still on the belt, he checks and retrieves it for me, and my shoes come as well. He mentions that the video was reviewed and I'm good to go, bu warning warning blah blah blah. I leave and walk past a room where old guy is being blasted by guards. I do not know what came of him. I waited a while for him to show up to thank him for his good intentions, but he never came out. I think it might be better that way. For all I know he's still there. He just wanted to give me my boarding pass. ;-) Kudos to the old guy, but holy hanna.. don't screw with LAX security. ;-)

That's my story.

AS.