Carrier Sales Rep Kendra Rhodes
Does this woman look armed and dangerous to you? If you had seen me and Matchmaker Carrier Sales Rep Kendra Rhodes at the airport last month, you might have thought so. Kendra works very closely with our clients in Texas, so she traveled with me from Wilmington to Texas via Atlanta to meet them in person.
Kendra’s no stranger to packing for business trips; a couple of months ago, she hit the road with Mary to visit another client. But this time, her trip took a rather surprising turn.
You see, just days prior to our Texas trip, Kendra and her family closed on and moved into a new house (congratulations, Kendra!). She hadn’t even finished unpacking her moving boxes when she found herself packing for this trip. So, Kendra grabbed one of her boyfriend’s duffel bags, deciding to use it as a makeshift suitcase for the trip.
When she got to the TSA security screening checkpoint, her luggage was scanned and pulled from the conveyor belt. “Who owns this bag?” the TSA officers asked. Kendra claimed it as her own. Then, the TSA officers proceeded to extract a large knife from the bag. It was a filet knife Kendra’s other half uses when he goes on fishing trips. Kendra had no idea it was nestled in a hidden pocket of the duffel bag! Embarrassed, Kendra told TSA they should just confiscate the knife, but I recognized that it was a pretty nice one. I felt much better leaving the line and taking it to my car for safe-keeping.
With that adventure behind us, we had a great visit out in Texas. But, on the way home, Kendra was stopped again! This time, TSA insisted that they had found explosive residue on her laptop computer which necessitated a complete pat-down from a female TSA officer. Poor Kendra was mortified.
I’ve written before about some of the unusual things that get left behind at the TSA lines in airports, and Kendra’s experience inspired Part Two.
Did you know that anything that even resembles a weapon can be confiscated by the TSA? That includes this string of holiday lights made out of empty shotgun shells. Grandma may have gotten run over by a flying reindeer, but the airlines managed to take even more joy out of her not-so-merry redneck Christmas!
The airlines don’t give out meals or snacks anymore, but be careful when you pack your own. You might be craving gelfite fish, but the TSA considers that grayish fish jelly they’re packed in to be a liquid. And since a can of gefilte fish contains more than 3-ounces of said liquid, it’s a no go. Sorry folks! You’re going to have to settle for something less tasty like that $4.50 pack of M&Ms at the airport bookstore.
But, Kendra, don’t you worry – Atlanta airport has seen far stranger things than a forgotten knife or a computer laptop with mystery residue. This item currently holds the record for the strangest thing ever to pass through a TSA scanner. It’s a corpse used in the filming of Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Take your shoes off this weekend,
~Bob
