The good news is that the Evil David Hill seems to have been apprehended, since I was able to do the United check-in-by-the-Internet thang without it hiccuping at me or summoning the FBI to my door or anything.
Or maybe they were summoned to my door, only to discover we’d already left for the airport.
We got to the airport, moseyed over to the North security check-in, and …
… it was empty. Well, that’s not true, there were TSA folks at the place where the endless switchbacks let out into the x-ray machine queues, and there were TSA folks at three of those queues, but there were … no … travellers …
Eerie.
We made our way to the first x-ray machine, myself in the lead, and got our bags all loaded up. I had to be reminded about my notebook computer for the first time in ages, since my whole waiting-in-line routine had been completely bypassed. Margie suggested I remove my shoes, and I noted I was wearing rubber sandals. I smilingly stepped through the magnetometer …
… and got waved over to the Needs More Searching goldfish bowl. No alarms or beeps or pinging noises, just waved over.
Where there was no waiting, of course, and the security guy was friendly and chatty and disarming (figuratively speaking) as he wanted me and all. He noted it wasn’t that I’d set off any alarms, it’s just that they need to be pretty continuously searching people, or at least X many per hour, and since there was nobody else around …
The most amusing bit (it was all amusing because the guy was nice, and we weren’t in a hurry) was that, in wanding me, my wallet went ping. That’s not usual if they have the wands set up high enough, because the magstrips on the credit cards will do it. At any rate, he said he had to x-ray my wallet separately.
Okay, no sweat.
He then proceeded to get out a zip-lock bag, put the wallet in, and then seal it with an Official TSA Sticker. He then showed it to me, and explained he was doing this so that there wouldn’t be any question of the wallet having been out of my possession and being looted. Which I thought was pretty clever, though it hadn’t been high on my list of things to worry about.
The wallet passed, he smiled, and we were on our way.
More security tales as they come along.