Bulldog I think you will see now the "assignments" in Europe have been swapped and moved east a bit that was why I asked about your timings.
But you never know maybe the "kids" father was overseas...hell could have been the Salvation army for all the TSA knows.
With the new US bases in Poland and Romania coming soon and a new NATO FOL coming to an "Eastern" location things are really moving East.
Maybe you need to fly out from IAD more with some of our other good friends and let "The Crow" peck his way to you.
I fly out of DCA often as I am a lobbyist and I have never had the pleasure of the crow. I have read about him on here but never had the pleasure.
I am not sure if I should be happy about that or sad LOL part of me is happy I usually have "normal" experiances but part of me wants the fun of picking on the hacks. DCA is actually one of the few locations where the checkers are chatty and not in a spotnik way. I tend to fly at off hour times so it is normally not crowded. They normally are talking sports or weather.
If the TSA was serious about SPOT they should get the old USAF survival school "p.o.w." trainers. We learned all sorts of techniques to avoid such questions. My first response would be" I'm Hungry, I want water"
Ciao,
FH