As if flying wasn’t pain in the a$$ enough… trying to fly while on a strict meal plan is next to impossible. Have to stick to solid foods, you have no access to fridges or microwaves, and you have extra “luggage” now carrying around an array of mismatched tupperware. Needless to say by the time I arrived at security I thought I had made it past the tough part… boy was I wrong!
Just a short brief on the Boise airport, it has a total of 21 gates and typically you can arrive 45 mins early, check a bag, get through security, grab a coffee, and STILL wait at your gate for about 15 minutes before boarding. So when I showed up almost an hour early with only carry-ons, I was psyched that I would actually be able to treat myself to a coffee from one of my favorite local places (which I had worked into my macros for the day) . Lol… joke was on me.
Well first of all this must have been training day for the TSA agents because they were processing approximately one persons’s bag per hour (ok – may be a slight exaggeration but go with me on this). So by the time I actually get into the teleportation device that they like to call the “millimeter wave machine” I only had about 20 minutes until my flight started to board.
First of all as I stepped out of the human fryer, I saw my a$$ light up yellow on the weird corpse outline they have on their screen. Ok, I wore my blinged out jeans… that was MY bad. I’ll take full credit for that oversight. Let the strip search begin!
However my little rendezvous was not over yet because when I went to get my things out of the 50 bins it took to lay everything out that they want to see, they pulled the bin with all of my food in it. Ok… wtf now?!
“Ma’am… we need to do additional screening on this bin. Can you please collect the rest of your things and meet me on the other side?” Sigh… but my coffee!!! Hmph!
As I sat there watching her inspect each container carefully I started to get a little nervous. Since when can you not bring food on a plane?! Then she said “Ma’am were you aware that you cannot bring liquid on a flight unless it is 3oz or less and can fit into a 1 quart Ziploc bag?” I replied “Yes ma’am, but what does that have to do with my food?” Her reply… and I cannot make this up… “Well your food is awfully juicy and I think that you have exceeded your allowed liquid amount AND it’s not in the proper container.”
Ummm… was that just a massive compliment??!! “Your food looks too juicy for travel”?! So much so that we think you are a threat to the plane’s security?! I didn’t know what else to do but start laughing which unfortunately was probably not the right move as she became very defensive and adamant that I could not carry my food through. Let’s just say laughing quickly turned into frustration.
I started to try and explain to her that I NEEDED this food for health reasons and that I hadn’t had an issue before but she was not having it. I asked her to call her supervisor because I refused to blow an entire day and waste a ton of food based on one rookie’s decision. Luckily the supervisor had a bit more sense and at least let me “drain” the liquid before he required it be re-run through the x-ray machine. Once my chicken and peppers were finally not a threat to national security, I only had 3 minutes until the boarding door closed. In fact they were already paging me as I was collecting up my food and of course it was at Gate 21… the last one in the terminal. Let my cardio workout commence…
I’m sure you’ll all be happy to know I made my plane, chicken and peppers in tow… BUT I did have to re-program my macros for the day since I was not able to obtain my coffee. #fitgirlproblems
Engineer Builds Body 