I made the mistake of being the first person of the day through a checkpoint, meaning of course they wanted to do the grope-down plus ETD on everything. (I even heard one screener say, "He needs a pat-down" as I approach the WTMD... great way to pass your time, folks).

The ETD passes... then as I am walking away with all my stuff (which the TSO had given me back), it alarms. "Wait a minute!" the TSO calls out. "Your laptop hit for nitro!"

So they swab it again, and it passes. "What have you been handling?" she asks. I shrug and say, "No clue--the ETD could nitro alarm for fertilizer, after all." She then says, "Have you put your laptop on a table or the ground or anywhere?" I almost laugh in her face at that: put my laptop on a table of all places? What a concept!

(Mind you, I am being extremely polite, as I don't want to get into an argument about the Privacy Act, etc., if they try to take any of my info on what is clearly an ETD machine malfunction--after all, my laptop had passed ETD at IAD less than 24 hours earlier and hadn't been removed at all during the trip--I realized I'd left the power supply at home and just left the laptop in its bag the entire evening).

She eventually agrees and just says, "I guess it could be almost anything--have a nice day."

As I'm getting ready to board, she comes over to the gate (about 10 feet from the checkpoint--we're talking a tiny airport) and says, "Your laptop fried my ETD machine!" I just chuckle, thinking she's joking around, and say, "I don't know; sounds like the machine was broken from the start." She then says, "What have you been handling?" and I respond, again, "I don't know," and go out to the plane singe the GA had then taken my BP.

My wife then tells me the TSO actually stopped HER to ask what I had been "handling" that could have set it off, and then goes on again about "whatever it was 'frying' the machine." Very odd that she stopped my wife to complain.

Fortunately they did not take any personal info from me. My wife also tells me it's good I didn't stop to lecture the TSO on how the ETD machine actually works, and why it could have been "broken."

But I do find it very strange that a TSO would act the way she did... and not fill out a report / take personal info. I'd have thought she was joking around if I hadn't watched her screening other pax and then heard about her stoping my wife. Apparently, she actually thinks my laptop "broke" the ETD.