Lesson Learned: Don't Try to Fly With Your Pocket Knife

So I just got back to NOLA after spending a week (yes, a whole week--haven't been home that long since I left for college my freshman year) back home in Kentucky. Can we just talk for a second about how fabulous it was to be back in the Bluegrass during football season? Oh my Lord. Probably it was just about the greatest week ever, and no, in case you passed out and hit your head and are feeling a bit delirious, I did not want to come back to the death heat and humidity of New Orleans. Not one little bit. Not that I had a choice in the matter as this is where the job is which currently pays my bills...but I surely didn't board the plane back down here in the greatest of moods, that's for sure.

Anywho, my attitude notwithstanding, I got the Lexington airport yesterday in plenty of time to catch my flight but I got stopped as I was going through security (no, I didn't set off the metal detector, thank you), when the TSA guy pulled me aside and told me that they were going to have to rescan my purse, which I thought was a bit odd just because, well, that's never happened before. So they run my purse through the x-ray thingy again and I can see all the little security guards conferring with one another as they point to the computer screen where my bag is being displayed. Hmmmm...

I started doing a mental inventory of what I could possibly have in my purse. It was a short list because I'm just not a big purse person. I know some women carry their whole lives around in their purses and you'd be likely to find just about anything in there but I'm not one of those people; I carry as little as humanly possibly. I was sure I had taken my pepper spray out and left it on my kitchen table in NOLA before I flew home last week so I knew it couldn't be that. I remembered that I had a fingernail file, but it was just one of those cheap cardboard ones, which I thought were still allowed so I figured it wasn't that either. Really, I had no idea what it could be.

The TSA guy asked me to step out of line so he could search my purse, so I went over to this table that was set up off to the side and watched as he pulled out my wallet, my cell phone, hairbrush, chapstick, pocket knife and...WHOA. Yes, I had a pocket knife in my purse! And not just any little old knife either--this thing was hardcore. Like three blades and a file and a corkscrew and everything!



I feel as though I should be at least mildly embarrassed because who does that anymore? Who tries to go through airport security with a weapon in their carry-on? In my defense, I had completely forgotten that I even put that in there weeks ago and what's scary is that you'll recall that it was caught as I went through security on my return flight...which means that I made it through airport security with that thing once already on my way to Kentucky last week...

Yikes.