February 2, 2010 at 1:07am (fleshed-out with additions)
They confiscated my tube of toothpaste because it had "6 oz" printed on it - even though it was clearly half-empty. Then they started to search my carry-on. Good thing they didn't get much further than the prodigious layer of simitler (5 to a bag) - because I would have had a VERY hard time explaining the box of miscellaneous unlabeled sausage ends.
If I hadn't removed the toothpaste from my computer bag (as a sign directed), he never would have found it. "I'm going to have to confiscate this."
I tell the agent what I think of his confiscation. When I gesticulate towards the limp tube, he responds by hiding it behind his back - placing it, I suppose, definitively beyond my reach. He looks stubborn, defensive, and now a bit sweaty. I raise my voice in calculated indignation...
[comment] They KNOW that 3 oz is legal (in a 3 oz tube). They KNOW it is only toothpaste. They KNOW that their rules seem ridiculous, and that they are confiscating hundreds of pounds of harmless cosmetics daily.
The other agents now luster around. Do they think I'm about to go berserk? Another agent calmly explains how they are required to go by the amount PRINTED on the tube, not by how much is inside. A third agent leads me away to inspected my carry-on. He is somewhat apologetic, and doesn't go very deeply into the bag.
[comment] What WE (ordinary people) don't know, is the exact nature of the security hole that they are trying to cover by this seemingly stupid arbitrariness.
In retrospect, there was NO security hole - the mickey mouse rules are allegedly because they don't want to take the time putting people's cosmetics through the small, but more powerful scanner that they keep on the side.
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