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The TSA Has Determined That My Cheese Is Not Explosive

November 30, 2007 on 4:44 am | In Miscellaneous, Travel | 10 Comments

Before leaving San Francisco for home in Cambridge, I stopped at the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero to pick up a few gifts for home. Among them was a small muffin-sized package of delicious, creamy Mount Tam cheese from Cowgirl Creamery in Point Reyes, CA, a favorite of my wife’s. I stashed it in my shoulder bag before catching the BART train to the airport.

Arriving at SFO I pleasantly breezed through the metal detector on my way to the gate and waited for my bag and laptop to come through the X-ray machine. The pleasant breezing sensation then came to an abrupt halt, as did the X-ray conveyor belt. My bag went back and forth through the machine several times.

“Can I please open your bag, sir?” a TSA contractor asked me. Her shoulder insignia read “Centurion Security Services, S.A.F.E.S.K.I.E.S.” emblazoned on a ferocious eagle-and-flag backdrop. I wondered what on earth the super-sized acronym could possibly stand for.

“No problem.” I’m not inclined to be overly protective of my bags’ privacy in these sad police-state times we live in. I assumed that the shape or size of something in my bag reminded someone of a sample X-ray they dimly remembered from the TSA X-ray Analysis training seminar. I didn’t want my behavior to remind someone of something they saw in some other TSA seminar, such as that fascinating Strip-Search Profiling Criteria class they took. I put my shoes back on and waited while, after several rummages, the cheese emerged. Much examination and discussion took place as the cheese was passed around and looked at from many angles. It received several prods and squeezes.

“We’ll run your bag through again, sir.”

“No problem,” I said. I was thinking, “Good, they’ve determined it’s merely a cheese, and once my bag scans OK, I’m out of here.”

The bag went back, came through again. But my cheese was not freed. Without further consultation with me, my TSA handler escorted my cheese to a holding area where several other TSA types were lurking. (I wanted to write, “She frogmarched my cheese to a holding area,” because it sounds so much better, but two people are required to frogmarch a cheese and there was only one of her.) There was much more discussion and cheese-prodding. My handler came back sans fromage, as they say at French security checkpoints.

“Sir, how much does your cheese weigh?”

“I don’t know.”

“There is a rule that you cannot bring liquids or gels over three ounces past the TSA checkpoint.”

“I know that, but this cheese is not a gel. It is just a soft cheese.” Inwardly I wondered if cheese was in fact a gel, technically speaking. It didn’t really matter, though. These people were not about to engage in arguments about whether cheese was a gel, a sol, a colloidal emulsion, or any other hair-splitting nonsense employed by classic strip-search candidates.

“It’s the consistency, sir. It is creamy. It is a creamy cheese. Also, there is no weight on the label.” (I breathed a sigh of relief and silently thanked Cowgirl Creamery’s label designer for this lapse of specificity.) “We’re going to have to weigh it.”

The action shifted back to the bevy of cheese-handlers. They seemed indecisive. No scale appeared to be handy as they passed the cheese among themselves, looking concerned and non-plussed. I was gearing up and considering my options. I was just deciding that it would be an appropriate bureaucratic revenge to assert my right to take home exactly three ounces of cheese when the group apparently gave up. My handler returned, cheese in hand.

“Sir, please come over here with me.” We went over to one of those explosive-analysis units. I unconsciously put my bag down on its metal surface. “NO!!! DO NOT put that bag there, sir!” I removed it, but I was relieved. I could feel a lecture coming on, which meant that the cheese might soon be free after being duly reprimanded for its creaminess.

She pointed to the TSA rules posted on the unit. “Sir, our rules clearly state that passengers may only take three ounces or less of gels or liquids in a clear transparent bag. This cheese is a gel consistency, but you do not have a transparent bag.”

“It’s true that I don’t have a bag. But, ma’am, I think you can understand why I might not have realized that cheese would be considered a gel by the TSA.”

“If you had checked the TSA website, you would have known that you needed a bag.” I did not argue about whether I could have checked the TSA website. My cheese was now in one of those WW II POW escape movies. It had escaped the cellblock via a clever plot, but still had to don the stolen SS uniform and make it past the guards at the perimeter fence. “Here is a bag,” said my handler. She produced a small Ziploc, placed the cheese inside, sealed it tightly, but did not return it yet. There was a long, pregnant pause as the searchlights swept the ground, looking for escapees. “When you go through the checkpoint, this is the kind of bag you must place it in.”

“Yes, ma’am. I will do that in the future.” She gave me the cheese and, reunited, the cheese and I left for Gate A6. It’s been kind of a bonding experience, to the tell the truth. I may hold onto that Mount Tam as a souvenir, at least until the smell becomes a bit strong. Or until my wife eats it. Whichever is sooner.

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