Some simple one finger sign language would have been an appropriate reply.

True, screeners can get annoyed and stressed just as easily as passengers. Nevertheless, screeners should not direct their frustrations at the passengers. Each individual passenger is just that, a different individual. They may not have heard what was said to the passenger in front of him/her. Working with TSA is a job of repetition and all TSA employees know that. Any screeners that makes a statement of who needs to go back to high school needs to be reprimanded. I have to repeat myself hundreds of times at my airport, but I don't let it get to me and I won't allow any other screener at my airport to mouth off at passengers either.

CATSA is a lot better than TSA... at least they dont make u take off your shoes

Few, if any, other locales have the disgusting shoe fetish that the perverts in charge of the TSA sanction and individual sicko FSDs embrace.

They use the same tactics as a pedophile stalking children. "I'll let you ride if you show me your private..."

Yesterday was the first time ever for me where I was not asked to remove my shoes and the first time I did not receive secondary.

I hope this becomes the norm. DEN's FSD is among the worst in my opinion.

Yes, sadly they do, to others as well. They have poked the length of a well-healed scar on my leg looking for WMD too.

What I find increasingly common are comments from fellow travelers after the shakedown. Everyone seems to have their own idea of how easy it would be to get anything by the screeners if they wanted to. They freely discuss it in the airport and while boarding the plane. Some people can be very creative!

How creative do you have to be to smash a bottle and wind up with a jagged weapon much more dangerous than 99% of the things being confiscated by the TSA?

"Watch out! He's got a BEER!"

It was, after all, a favorite weapon of Don Coorleone!

or Jack(Daniels) the ripper?

It's so easy to show what a fool you and your agency are.

And when you constantly have to repeat something over and over again because passenger just refuses to take a little time and read a sign, it can get annoying
Hey, every PAX pays the hefty "securitytax" with his ticket-so he should be entitled to get a friendly and polite explanation.

With the exception of shoes that have steel shanks inside the soles (and MANY of them do), I have to admit that I found the TSA shoe policy a bit overboard when it came to inspecting shoes that do NOT contain metal shanks. That is, until I recently took an improvised explosive devices class and got to see, feel, touch a pair of shoes that duplicated the shoe bomb worn by Richard Reid. While I'm prohibited to discuss any details, suffice it to say that I now apply the TSA shoe policy ESPECIALLY with the shoes that do not alarm at the walk-thru. Sorry about the inconvenience to you travelers, but if you expect us to do our jobs thoroughly, then removing shoes for X ray inspection is the price you have to pay. You do NOT have to remove your shoes if you don't want to; you can elect to keep your shoes on and undergo secondary screening which will include an ETD inspection of your shoes.

As for the smart alec comments from screeners: you NEVER should tolerate that sort of behavior and should ALWAYS submit a complaint to the checkpoint supervisor or screening manager. Your written complaints are needed to help TSA management document disciplinary action against rude screeners.