Some new pacifiers these day have liquids sealed inside. I could easily see a TSO invoking the War on Liquids with such an item.

Deck of playing cards. Box had to be opened and the cards flipped through. No swabbing though.

Laptop lock/security cable. Resulted in laptop bag being xrayed 2 times and then looked through until I was told "That cable things is confusing to see on the machine."

Was told that I had a lighter in my bag and next time to remove it. I told them I don't smoke that I'd just flown through 3 airports that day and hadn't let the bag out of my sight. To prove that there wasn't a lighter I told them to tear it apart and see that they were wrong. Excuse given when no lighter materialized: "It must have been the power brick for your laptop."

Yeah, I should have noted it was just a rubber pacifier, no "enhancements" or "anomalies." I forgot that once I posted it.

I was bringing back as a gift for my mom some manjar blanco, which is a Colombian version of dulce de leche, quite tasty. It comes packed in a coconut shell, which is then wrapped in plastic (with Spanish writing explaining what it is), and it is not liquid per se. The TSO spent a lot of time looking at it, turning it over and over, without ever once asking me what it was. Eventually, she just handed it to me and I left. Note: I was not coming from Colombia, I was flying between two domestic airports.

Maybe the TSO just needed a fix when they went on break.

Actually, that *is* quite dangerous. For instance, ammonia (not dangerous) + bleach (not dangerous) = anything from poison gas to an explosive.

Under no circumstances should liquids all be poured together in a common bin. I can think of dozens of individually safe chemicals that combined would pretty much wipe out the CP.

The camera? The only time mine's drawn scrutiny the culprit was a box of batteries for the flash, not the camera itself.

Piles of electronics like this have drawn scrutiny since before the TSA.

They actually touched the lenses? What the hell would that prove?

Nothing but that the DSO in question shouldn't be trusted not to pee on the floor, let alone operate equipment that generates ionizing radiation.

LOL, I better not bring my circular slide rule then. They wouldn't understand that it is just a slide rule.

A pair of miniature pliers (1 inch long) confescated at OMA. I wrote to TSA and they apoligized and offered to return it to me. Guess what? They couldn't find it. I told them to check the screeners pocket.

Nose hair scissors taken at ATL. Less than 1 inch long, the idiot said, they were "metallic, and pointed".

My 99 cent corkscrew had to be left at LAX.

They tried to take my electrical "sniffer" at ORD. (A pen size device that lights a red LED if you hold it near a live electrical wire.) The Goober-ette didn't know what it was. When I explained it, she asked why is it flickering when she rubbed it on her shirt. I told her that scientists just discovered a new Phenomenon called "static electricity". They copied my ID. I'm probabaly on their list now.

Haha, just wait until someone drops a mentos in there.

You should have told her it was a scintillator and it was flickering from her long-term exposure to the X-ray machines.

SAN TSA wigged out over my tooth brush once. I kept telling the guy that it was a tooth brush, but he acted like he had never heard of such a contraption.

Also, bobby pins. Had a TSA goon at SAN pull those out of my bag. I said 'bobby pins' and he stared at them, mouth agape, and after about fifteen seconds said 'I know what the hell bobby pins are'.

Both times I had people approach me after that to ask what I 'did wrong'.

Given TSA's confusion over

• whether 3 is, or is not, the same as 3.4,
• whether ounces (fluid) are, or are not, the same as ounces (avoirdupois), and
• whether mythical liquid explosive have to be pre-mixed or post-mixed,

it's obvious that people who know as much about math, chemistry and physics as you three are Up To No Good.