>>>>>I'm young so i'm at a disproportionate disadvantage....

In ORD and DTW while pax were waiting for the baggage to come out, I've seen a few occasions where strolling agents would walk up to young people and ask them every jot and tittle about their trip. These are NW/KL flights from AMS, so I think there was particular interest there.

>>>>>My Uncle was coming back from St. Maarten and when he was asked how much alcohol he had, he said what he had, something like 9 liters, and never got a bill or paid a fine.

That has to do with the paperwork reduction act--in the U.S. they figured out that ultimately it costs more to levy taxes on the booze than what gets collected. I once had a hand-search and the bottles of whisky started cropping up, and the agent said, "Well I don't think anybody cares too much about that."