Yesterday at SAN, the x-ray operator saw something in my rollaboard. He called over one of the other screeners and said, "Can you tell what that is? I've never seen anything like it."

Of course that gets a bag check. I'm at that point sure it's the large portable hard drive I sometimes travel with, as I've had screeners scrutinize it before (to their credit, the guys at MRY could tell exactly what it was, and the x-ray guy explained to the trainee with him that I had lots of photo gear and it made sense I had such a large hard drive).

Nope, it's my camera monopod. The lady is completely confused and asks me, "Do you know what this is?"

That question had to be the all-time dumbest I've ever gotten from the TSA. Do I know what something I packed is?

I tried to explain, "A camera monopod--you know, like a tripod but just one leg," but I could tell she wasn't getting it. She tried to figure out how to extend it, etc., and looked like she wanted to call a supervisor--then she looked at how badly backed up the line was, shrugged, and repacked my bag.

"Never seen one of those before," she admitted.