My best memory of PHX airport was when Lady JDiver's bag came out of the carousel, but mine didn't. After a long time, I began to look... and an officious twit dressed in a uniform came over and asked me what I was doing. He then pointed to a bag that was parked in a corner of the area and asked me if that was my bag.

I replied in the affirmative, at which Mr. Twit grabbed the bag and told me "Come with me!" I inquired as to where we were going, and he merely replied, louder than before, "You have to come with me!" When I told him that actually, that may have been true where I had just arrived from (Mexico,) this was not true here in the USA, and if he was detaining me, I had a right to know what the reason was.

He fixed me with the most accusatory look he could screw his face into (must be some technique taught in security school) and said "There's a KNIFE in that bag!" I again replied in the affirmative, and further explained that it was a dive knife, in my dive bag - in fact a honking, big, serrated, sharp dive knife big enough to stick in the sand in a ripping current and hold you there, but I had checked the bag containing it into the airline, so it was entirely legal.

He really didn't like that... "But you were going to take it through there!" he fairly shouted - duh, corridors with no security, leading to where I could check in my bags, process security and access my next flight (to SMF.) I told him, yes, that was true, and in fact, Lady JDiver's similar dive bag had an identical big, honking dive knife.

The ever-classic reply of a person with true microcephalic capabilities was "Yes, she can do that, but you can't take your bag through there." On inquiring why that was, he told me "because we didn't SEE hers on the X-Ray machine."

Dear readers, I won't bore you with the rest - how my bag was dropped out on the tarmac for an hour or so, how the baggage agent refused to do anything until I called for a supervisor to do something (reluctantly!) and how she finally glowed and gloated for ordering someone to find the bag and doing her job... much less how I spoke with two security supervisors who didn't understand what my problem with their procedure was, and refused to do anything about it.

I just wanted to inform you of a concept, possibly pioneered at PHX, I now call "good knife, bad knife." Maybe you wil see a version of this at an airport near you soon, as it could trickle out, even across the trackless desert... Another feature of enhanced airport security, for your protection...