TSA Screeners From Hell

      I rarely blast Transportation Security Administration airport screeners. After-all, they are the ones who keep away the bad guys, weapons and everything else dangerous from making their way onto the aircraft I fly. And for the most part, they treat airline employees and crew members very well. And I respect the job the are forced to do.
     But there is that occasional TSA employee who crosses the line with pilots, flight attendants and passengers, and unfortunately gives the rest a bad rap. Such was the case at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport the other day. We were just coming from a layover. It was early in the morning and I happened to pass through the lane that was being manned by The TSA Screeners From Hell.
    It started out with a female TSA agent who I'll call "Blond Bimbo". She insisted I take off my belt. I told her, my belt does not make the  alarm go off. And I told her I passed through the same airport last week and wasn't forced to ditch the belt. But Blond Bimbo insisted. She was a woman in charge. Or so she thought.  So I followed her instructions and told her that they need to be more consistent with the way they enforce such measures. The pilot behind me was not asked to remove his belt. She obviously was on a power trip.
     So I pass through security, go to get my bags at the other end of the conveyor belt , and run into another TSA agent from hell. We'll call this one "The Chola,." slang a female Mexican gang member.  She was at the other side of the checkpoint holding my tote bag with attached visable crew tags, and she was ready for war. She asked me if it was mine. I assured her it was.
     "Well get your things because we have to hand search it," said the agent, who had a bad, jet black hair dye job with silver roots down the middle clearly showing. She reminded me of a cross between Elvira and the cartoon skunk character Pepe Le Pew. I kid you  not!
       Behind me was a pilot  who saw the entire exchange beginning with the Blond Bimbo. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. A crew member taken aside to have their bag hand searched.
      "What's the use of having a TSA issued badge if they're going to do that? It's a joke," he commented to me as he gathered his bags and went on his way.
     The Mexican Chola obviously took her job a little too serious that morning. The skin tight uniform she was wearing, about to burst at the seams. She immediately had to make her minuscule authority known.
     "What did he say?" she asked me.
      I told her she needed to ask him.
      "Last time I checked, we were living in the United States of America and were free to say whatever we want," I belted back at her.  Well that got her going even more.
     So she called over a third TSA agent who I'll call "The Bodyguard," a thick built bubba-type of  guy, who thought he was going to try and intimidate me even more.
     As they took me to a secluded secondary screening area to search my bag, he tried to interrogate me as if he was the police. The two of them ganging up on me like two vicious pit bulls attacking a helpless kitten. He asked me for the name of the captain who just left.
     I wasn't about to fink out the captain. So I told him he would have to go ask him.
     "Supervisor!!!!" the Chola agent shouted, as she continued to verbally harass me.
     So a TSA supervisor, who I would describe as grandmotherly and looking as if she just came from a retirement home,  comes over in the middle of her employee's ranting and raving.
     "Stop it! Enough!" she told Chola in raised voice. I got the sense that Chola had a reputation of similar behavior with other passengers going through the security checkpoint.
     End of conflict. Supervisor saves the day and comes to flight attendant's rescue. Sounds like a movie.
     So the Chola opens my bag and begins rummaging through it, an apparent justification for her harassment. 
    "You wanna save yourself some time and tell me where your coin bag is," said Chola, as if trying to redeem herself in front of her boss.
     So the Napoleon TSA agent and her pit bull cohort, look through my harmless coin bag, put it back in my tote, and told me I was free to leave. The Bodyguard tried to ask for my name, but Chola came to my defense.
    "He's not the one who was making comments about the TSA," she told a dejected-looking fellow agent.
      All the while I laughed walking to the departure gate, thinking about how the only thing they could find to secondary stop me was a harmless see-through coin pouch!   As if I would be able to hide something sinister in it. Now mind you, I've been traveling with the same coin pouch in my bag for the past 10 years and have never been stopped before. Makes you wonder what fine employees our federal tax money is paying for.
      It all boiled down to this: The first TSA agent was pissed because I challenged her about taking off my belt. She in turn alerted Chola to secondary search my bag. The body guard was there to protect Chola during this whole exchange. Three is better than one. Or,  now that I think about it, he must have been the literate one whose job it was to take names.
     Again, for the most part, most TSA agents are gracious to crew members, Occasionally, I've seen them get testy with regular passengers about one thing or another. Other times I've seen them try and convey to the public that they are "federal agents" and nobody is going to mess with them.
    Kind of like Chola. It's probably the first time in her life she has ever had a career that mattered, even if she is paid a minimal salary, probably barely enough to feed her kids and own a home.  We know it's not enough to pay for a decent hair-dye job.
     But overall, I'm glad they are there. They have a tough job repeating instructions daily to clueless travelers passing through airport security screening checkpoints. They have to deal with allot. They are underpaid, overworked and rarely thanked.
    "If I had it my way, you crew members are not the ones I would be checking here,'' one TSA agent in Los Angeles once told me. "You guys (crew members) are not the enemy."
     So as I travel across the US, from airport to airport, city to city, I try and thank the nice TSA agents for doing an excellent job protecting my aircraft and keeping away the terrorists. As I pass through the checkpoints, I tell them "Thank you" and remind them "to have a nice day."
     Phoenix  was an exception!