Airport Screeners: Dumber Than a Phone Book

I recently put a text ad for my photography business in the local Yellow Pages. Last year it was a quarter-page ad (that I designed and submitted), but (a) Yellow Pages are going the way of the dodo, (b) their ad rates are way beyond their fair value, and (c) anecdotal experience — mine — suggests that Yellow Pages are predominantly beloved by Googlephobic bargain hunters, a group I'd just as soon avoid. So just a little text ad this year, thanks very much. It was supposed to contain the following phrase:

editorial photography • events • portraits

Well, the other day the new book came out, and I found that that part of my ad had been rendered thusly:

editorial photography <bullet pt> events <bullet pt> portraits

Which is proof positive that the universe is truly inscrutable, presenting such questions as What is dark matter, If a tree falls in the forest why do we need lumberjacks, and How is it that ragingly incompetent mofos can find gainful employment at Idearc.

Then again, the Yellow-Pages numbnuts are towering geniuses next to the people charged with keeping you safe in the skies. Really.

You already heard about the guy who was told he couldn't board a plane wearing a T-shirt featuring a cartoon character holding a gun. Now here's the story of a woman who was put through the airport-security wringer because she wore a solid-silver pendant of a Colt .45 on a necklace.

This is a picture of the impermissible piece of jewelry. You be the judge.

The only thing that's kinda gratifying about the stepped-up nabbing of clearly harmless passengers is that T-shirt guy was stopped in the U.K. and pendant lady in Canada. So, thank heavens, it's not just America that recruits screeners with the IQ of a syphilitic pigmy and the judgment of a fish turd.

Comments

[Martin Owens]

What did the pygmies ever do to you, to
be compared to TSA?

[kenc]

So if the printed Yellow Pages are "going the way of the dodo", why did you buy an ad then?? Could it be that real people actually use the book?? Some 14 BILLION references last year.

[Jolly Bloger]

I'm taking a flight from Canada to America in a couple of weeks. What could I do/bring/wear that is one step more ridiculous than the teeshirt and necklace?

Maybe I'll wear a shirt with a picture of a gnu and hope for a dyslexic TSA agent. Perhaps some lip balm. Any suggestions?

[Windypundit]

Jolly, How about a T-shirt bearing that picture of the woman wearing the gun pendant?

[Jethro]

A picture of a nerf gun.