Hand-Carry Luggage

Do you want a piece of me?

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Security check at all international flights are serious about liquids in bottles. After my losing luggage experience, I don’t want to place the responsibility of delivering my luggage to other’s hand. I decided to try my luck with the security staff.

In Auckland airport, before going to the passport control, a lady asked me to weight my roller, which is 10 kg, way beyond the 7 kg limit. However, who cares? Suppose the airline doesn’t pick on me, it is not your call to not allow me board. I was trying to be nice and it was really too early in the morning. I took out the books I bought along the way, all my toiletries. The roller finally weighted around 8 kg and she was OK.

As I was stuffing the books and bottles into my handbag, she said that I am not allowed to carry them to the plane. I ignored her demand, tried to explain it is impossible for me to leave them in Auckland as I have no relatives or home here. We stood silent for seconds, I was trying to figure out a way to get out of this place but my brain wasn’t really functioning at that point of the time. I have no brain power to figure out the dim and mystery world her plankton-size brain inhabits.

She demanded me to put everything on the scale, the third time. I dutifully followed her instruction slowly, but showing no intention to leave anything behind. She got angry and told me stop telling her how to do her job. I knew I was breaching the regulation but I don’t want to let the airline company to have a chance to mess around with my luggage again because I don’t want to miss my connection flight to Beijing.

As people coming in piling up the queue, she had to let me go (because my stuff was still on the scale, she accused me of holding other people). Her fat face and small eyes were filled with the hatred. She cursed “You will be surprised”.

The second challenger is at the security gate. They let go my hand bag and roller, however, pick on my toiletries sealed in plastic bag. The containers might be big, however, the liquid inside was certainly less than 100 ml. The old security officer said that he had to throw away my face wash foam. Fine, I let him. He almost wanted to throw away my contact lens solution, but I quickly recalled that is exempted. So I saved one bottle. As for my lotion, I fetched the small toner sample and pour the liquid to my hand and applied them generously on my face. The officer was so annoyed because he wants to get back to work. I then slowly squeeze the face lotion into the toner bottle. Not leaving a single drop. The officer was like “you might have a day to do that but I have other work to do”. What else can I do? It is your business if you are not happy.

After all these hassles, I finally got the precious right to get closer to the gate. I was a very angry with a burning face. These security measures are only inconveniencing travelers, they didn’t find out the nail files in my cosmetic bag, the sharp tweezers that could easily turn into a weapon and the lighter in my pocket. I think these rigid security regulations would easily turn an ordinary citizen into a terrorist.