Well that's pretty silly! Did it not occur to them that you might have checked your liquids? That's what I did on my flights last week (thankfully I was flying Southwest, so no charge). I figured I had enough problems with trying to get through the checkpoint with my backbrace - I didn't want to have to deal with possibly having the wrong sized zip-lock baggie.

What I take from that is what we've been saying all along - that TSOs do whatever they feel like, regardless of what the so-called "rules" are. That we can't count on having a consistent experience with respect to how we are screened, because TSOs choose what rules they want to follow, and what they don't. That many TSOs don't even bother to learn the rules (as evidenced by the TSO who told me in OKC that I had to put my back brace through the x-ray, in spite of the fact that it's a medical device that, according to the TSA website, does not have to be removed). That we passengers cannot be expected to know what to do at any TSA checkpoint, because every TSO does whatever he or she feels like - whether it's ignoring the rules that actually are in place, or even making up rules that are NOT (e.g. demanding to know how much money someone is carrying, and then considering themselves duty-bound to initiate a criminal investigation when the passenger refuses to tell them).