Flying on Sunday out of MHT, I had the worst experience I've ever had with the TSA. I know others on this board have experienced much worse levels of harrassment and other badness, but generally, I haven't. I just try to be respectful and compliant, and get through the line as fast and efficiently as possible, and no one seems to pay me much mind.
On Sunday, I got in line at the MHT secondary security checkpoint (the one on the end for gates 1-7, if you're familiar). There's only one lane there, so the line was backing up a little bit. The ID checker was being unnecessarily thorough, I thought, but he pleasantly said "hello" and bid me good day when he was finished.
I stepped up to the belt and put my shoes and liquids in the bin, and set my backpack behind them. Prior to getting in line, I had already stuffed my fleece in my pack, so I was wearing jeans, a long sleeve T-shirt, and socks (running shoes, as I said, were in the bin). The attendant shoving bags into the xray yelled at the lady in front of me, who had forgotten to remove her toothpaste from her bag ("It's been this way for over a year now," she snapped). Then she turned to me. I am a woman, for reference.
"Do you have anything on under that?" she said, pointing at my shirt.
"No," I said simply.
She turned her head away from me (while shoving toothpaste-lady's bag into the machine) and said something that I couldn't quite make out. I could only assume it was going to be something like "Then we won't make you take it off" or some similar lighthearted mea culpa, but I wasn't sure, so I smiled and said, "Pardon me?"
Her head snapped up, and in a nasty tone she said, "You *will* be patted down. That's *bulky*."
Taken aback, I said, "okay." Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I will say that the tshirt was a little big on me, due to me having lost some weight (yay). However, bulky is an overstatement -- it's still a T-shirt. But as I said, I'm generally inclined to be respectful and compliant, and figure that's the fastest way to get through the process.
So I put my bags through the x-ray and headed over to the metal detector, meanwhile the dragon lady is walking up and down behind the belt, pointing at me and yelling that I need to be patted down (to who, I don't know, but know the whole line knows about my attempted subversion, that's for sure). I walk through the metal detector and hand my BP to the guy there, who quite politely indicates that I should step to his right, my left. As soon as I do this, dragon lady comes running over and bellows, "NO!"
She points an index finger in my face. "You *will* be patted down," she repeats. She grabs the fabric of my sleeve. "*This* is bulky. Get in there!" And she points emphatically to the glass box. She briefly chews out the metal detector guy for telling me to step around instead of sending me to the box. Then she steps inside and does my rub down herself. She didn't say anything else to me. I got my shoes and bag and got the heck out of Dodge as soon as possible.
I didn't get her name or badge number -- it just didn't occur to me. I don't like confrontation, so it didn't occur to me to say anything. I wish I had had the presence of mind to ask for a supervisor or at least note her name, but I was relatively mortified. I guess even keeping your head down and shutting up fails sometimes. I know people have seen worse than this, but I'm left feeling oddly violated.
