Two funny stories: One that I am part asian and I have /extremely/ thick black hair. Back in college I had hair down to my waist and I’d pulled it up in a clip because the air port was freaking hot. They pulled me aside and wouldn’t let me take my hair down, but kept sticking chopsticks in it to see if I’d hidden anything in my hair! lol
Other one is that I make ball jointed dolls and they’re hollow and strung with elastic. When x-rayed it either looks like a bunch of wires or a tiny dead body. After the time someone got uppity and claimed they were vials of lotion until he opened it and looked(and the other TSA agents laughed at him), I started carrying them with me in the open instead of a bag. Bear in mind these two dolls are over two feet tall and very detailed. So I plunk them down on the belt at Lambert in St. Louis and one of the TSA agents, this nice black lady, was like, “OH MY GOD. BABIES. TELL ME ABOUT THEM!” she was so excited by them. they aren’t really babies, they’re kind of anime-looking? but anyway, she asked me their names and and cooed over them(it wasn’t busy) and she turns to her the other agent and is like, “This one is /Jack/ and this one is /Ghaleon/. You be good to her babies.” And I look at the TSA agent and it was the same wormy white dude that had tried to say I was smuggling lotion!
I fly mostly out of SFO and LAX any more and I’ve never had any problems with the dolls there!
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