Pt 3 Arizona or maybe Rice Milk Will Not Crash a Plane part 3

It is off to phase two of the security. Child #6 could not drink cows milk. She could only drink rice milk. Now we got all eight of our tickets for free with our frequent flyer miles and the only catch was that we would have to spend the night in Dallas on our way home. We would arrive in Dallas at 10:00 pm and leave the next morning at 5:00 AM. That would leave no time to go to a store. So our carry on bags had to have anything that we would need for over night, including rice milk for the baby. Now, I knew from going to the airport and airline security websites that we might be allowed to get her milk on the plane. It is at the discretion of the security personnel.

We are standing in line with about 50 other people. We take off our shoes and put them on the conveyor, take the baby out of her stroller, put her humongous car seat on, unpack our video camera, empty our pockets, and tell the security people about the milk. It is important here to get a full understanding of the events and spirit of the situation. About 50 people who DO NOT WANT to be in line behind us who are all talking, a recording over the loud speaker continually reminding us of the 3-1-1 rule (3 ounce bottle or less (by volume) ; 1 quart-sized, clear, plastic, zip-top bag; 1 bag per passenger placed in screening bin. One-quart bag per person limits the total liquid volume each traveler can bring. 3 oz. container size is a security measure.)a man who keeps shouting that if we need one quart zip-top bags he has some and where the garbage cans are for containers that are larger than 3 ounces, security people talking- well they were mostly yelling, machines beeping, "puff machine" puffing (that is a machine that sends a puff of air at you and then "smells" the air looking for the scent of explosives).

I declare the milk first, before we do anything else and the security person (SP from here on out) tells me to "leave it out". I am not really sure what that means so I held it in my hands. Well, then SP #1 yelled at me to put it in its own bin. I guess that is what is meant by "leave it out". I can see that the car seat is not going to go into this machine, and the SP can tell too. He tells me to take it apart and I assure him that it does not come apart. Well, eager to show me just how much of an idiot I must be, he begins tugging on different parts of the seat until he relents. Maybe the person who owns and operates the car seat, does actually know something about it. One of them, SP#2, whom I might mention, sat in a seat across the corridor the entire time and not once did I see her get up, yelled at me to turn the seat over. So I turned it over. I guess I did not turn it over the right way, so she yelled some more for me to turn it over. This went on and on until I figured out what the rude SP meant. I am still baffled at why she could not simply get up and turn the seat herself. So finally the car seat will go forward.

Each member of the family has gone through the metal detector without an ounce of fan fair. Life is looking GOOD! I am the last member of the family. I give each child his or her shoes and bag and send them to the end of the corridor with Dad to reduce the confusion. As each bag is scanned by the machine SP#1 watches the monitor closely (You need to imagine seeing my right eyebrow go up as if to say, "Yeah right". I will explain more about that later) and he elbows the SP#3 next to him and says, "look at this". The SP#3 says, "Close it down and call the police". WHAT??!?!! It is rice milk for crying out loud. I keep thinking if they will just ask me about it I can explain to them my babies dietary needs, but no, you have to really stress the "no" when you say that in your head- but noooooo, no one asks me about it. They just close the line and scream "CLOSE THE LINE, CLOSE THE LINE, CLOSE THE LINE. GO TO THE OTHER LINE!!!!!" Oh, for crying out loud- you think the other 50 people were a little annoyed before one of the two lines were closed, imagine how thrilled they were now.