Travel Tip

At the Salt Lake City Airport we made our mandatory trip through Security. I noticed that the guard manning the x-ray machine was spending a fair amount of time looking at my black tote bag. I didn't know why, since it contained the same items that had been in it on the way from Houston to Salt Lake City, with the addition of two ceramic tiles. I didn't think those would send any danger signals. She let my bag go through, but said she wanted to send it back through again. The second time through, she looked some more, then called another guard over to manually search my bag.

I was led over to a table, where the guard proceeded to swab the inside of my bag and run it through a machine to test for drugs. He then started taking things out of my bag - books, the tiles, and my makeup bag (which he also went through). He then pulled out the root of all the trouble. The item which had looked suspicious on the x-ray machine. This:

What is it, you ask? Well, it's a device you hook to your suitcase so you can weigh it and make sure it weighs less than 50 pounds. It's really quite a handy device.

The problem? When going through the x-ray machine it looks suspiciously like a Taser. And, as we all know, tasers are forbidden in your carry on luggage.

I assured the guard that from now on I would put the device in my suitcase when I was through with it. No more possible tasers in my carry on bags!

I wasn't bothered at all by the encounter. I'm glad the guard manning the x-ray machine was on the ball enough to have noticed the device in my luggage. Better safe than sorry! I'm just wondering why the guard in Houston didn't catch it...