Originally Posted by
ORDofcr
Well, I am not advocating what that particular TSO did. Said passenger shouldn't have left his/her items unattended on the divesting table/x-ray rollers and walked away. How many times have we seen on here the "I wait for all my items to disappear into the x-ray before I go to the metal detector." Which you should! People are so worried about us touching their things but they don't ensure that their items are properly through the machine.
The other day, a horrid horrid day, (weather at ORD=mass flight delays/cancellations) I was running the x-ray and someone left their items just sitting on the table like they were going to sprout legs and walk themselves right in the machine. I looked at the bags, and looked at the x-ray, then back at the bags, and asked the woman if she could push them on. She said "they aren't mine." So I said "OK." and we waited until the owner was saying "where's my stuff?" The woman I asked to push the items in yelled loudly, "right here were you left it!!" I could only laugh to myself because I rarely see passengers "schooling" other passengers.
I do not remember the airport as they all begin to run together after awhile, but it absolutely was not nor could have been ORD. I am also certain it was not BNA. I know this because it was one of those rare airports where one of the excess TSO's with nothing else important to do was stationed at the entry to the xray tunnel and making sure that no one had done the atrocious act of placing something on their shoes or computer while in the bin. This one was also "helping" to feed the bins by taking perfectly okay where they were shoes out of the bin and putting them on the belts where the strings could get wrapped up in the machine. It was in this rearranging mode that the offending kippie bag was discovered and held up for inspection.
The bin was nearly in the tunnel. The TSO was giving the impression of assistance and I would be certain that the Pax felt the TSO had taken control of her belongings for the screening process. She was completely trusting in this, as most people would be. We do not, and should not have to, worry about leaving our possessions in the care of a uniformed government employee.
Little did she know.