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My Rant About the TSA and my Misplaced Luggage in Orlando

By The Pullins Group LLC

My family and I were originally scheduled to make a two day drive from Howard, Ohio to Orlando, Florida leaving early on December 18th.  Then we fell victim to the hype of the snowstorm and instead of leaving as scheduled, we waited until the 19th and caught a last minute, but very reasonably priced flight on Southwest.  Because the snowstorm didn't hit until much later than predicted we would have probably missed the snow if we had stuck to our plan to drive.  Live and learn I guess.

The flight on Southwest to Orlando was as normal as the previous ones, no problems at all.  But the return trip home on December 26th was something entirely different.

I'm a relatively experienced user of commercial airlines in the United States.  I was stranded on 9/11 in Muscatine, Iowa and ended up exchanging my rental car in Moline, IL for a one way rental and driving home.  I flew into New York while ground zero was still smoking and the soldiers were still in the airports, all with minimal hassle and little delays.  Until this week.

The lines in Orlando were no longer than usual and the security wasn't any more upgraded than normal.  Some dude behind me got nailed for a bag check which delayed me for a few minutes at the scanner, but that was it.  Our plane was half full and no one was prohibited from using the bathroom during the last hour, or having blankets on their laps and so on.

Everything was fine until we began to pick up our bags in Columbus and found that only one had arrived.  We were told that a broken conveyor in Orlando had delayed our bags, along with many others.  Don't worry, Southwest told us, your bags will be here in 3 hours on the next flight.  If you wait around we'll give you $100 bucks, if not we'll deliver to your house.  Southwest even provided us with a loaner booster seat for the ride home.

I was just mildly irritated until I got a cell phone call from a Southwest representative in Orlando, while on the way home.  Apparently, the clueless reps from TSA had opened our largest suitcase in Orlando, went through our stuff, and left a bunch of it lying around in the airport.

If it wasn't for the fact that some of the stuff was prescription drugs with my name on it, the Southwest representative would not have been able to identify and return the hundreds of dollars of medicines, Christmas gifts, and other personal items to us. 

Now, I've got no beef with Southwest.  I'm more than happy how Southwest handled this.  I love Southwest.

They spent a lot of employee time and their money delivering our luggage to us over 60 miles from the airport in the middle of the night.  No, my beef is solely with the TSA!

How stupid and incompetent do you have to be to pull stuff out of someone's suitcase and leaving it lying on a table by itself?  Why didn't TSA identify the stuff, track me down, and return our goods to us?  How much money are American airlines spending to fix these TSA screwups?

And what really fries my cheese the most is that I have to go through this crap to begin with. 

I have been through multiple BCI and FBI background checks in order to obtain my law license, to obtain my Ohio concealed carry license, and to obtain my Utah concealed carry license.  I have undergone multiple Whitehouse level background checks for the numerous times that I have met with former Presidents, Vice Presidents, Cabinet members and presidential candidates.  Most recently, my wife, my 6 year old daughter, and I all submitted our information and were approved by Southwest for their higher level TSA verification process.

What kind of background check do I need to undergo, what kind of special ID do I need to have, how much do I need to pay, and who do I need to sleep with so that I can walk through security without TSA leaving my shit in an airport?  Apparently, I need to convert to some radical terrorist sect, train with al qaeda, be put on some kind of watch list, and then be turned in to the spooks at a U.S. Embassy by a close relative.  Once that happens I can walk right through security.

This is Bullshit!!!!  And to now top it off, some of my friends on the right want to put this on Obama's head. 

Last time I checked, this idiotic crap started with George W. Bush and only 3 or 4 Republicans in the U.S. House voted against it.

There has got to be a way to stop harassing law abiding Americans that travel while protecting us against foreign terrorists that want to blow us up.  It's time for my fellow Republicans to stop the blaming and put some clever ideas on the table to solve this.  If Ohio bloggers from the left and the right can agree on these things, then why can't our leaders?

Full post as published by The Pullins Report on December 29, 2009 (boomark / email).