Polimom had several experiences with airport security on this trip, but for the most part, they were mere inconveniences. Since I’ve long-since learned that the days I fly somehow always correspond to airport security’s targeting of either women, or mothers with children, most of it rolled by without issue.
Discovering a knife in my purse at the other end of the journey, however, did not qualify as an insignificant event.
“Ack!”, you say. “A knife? Is Polimom a dangerous terrorist?”
No, of course not. In fact, Polimom was disturbed and confounded for some time upon discovering this article.
It wasn’t a butcher knife, but merely a utilitarian-sharp silver table knife. However, it was emphatically not mine, nor did it come from my kitchen. Furthermore, when I finally figured out how it could have traveled from Houston to London in my purse, I was only mildly soothed… because I acquired it after AC and I had passed through airport security, but before we got on the plane.
Apparently, this piece of elegant tableware had fallen into my oversized bag while we passed the mandatory waiting time for international flights in the airline “club”, presumably after buttering a cracker or something.
Should travelers be worried about this apparent hole in airport security? Possibly not, though Polimom thinks it partly depends upon one’s opinion of fingernail files and latch-hooks, both of which are viewed with great suspicion (and sometimes siezed) by airport security. On the other hand, not worrying about it means we trust that those who work in the airline “clubs” and private lounges have been vetted and deemed “safe”.
As it happens, I was enormously relieved when I figured out where that darned knife had come from, and unhesitatingly tossed it into the garbage can. What the experience taught me about airport security, however, is another thing altogether.