You Must Be From Away

The TSA are a thieving bunch.

Or dim.

Or both.

You can’t carry knives on your person on a flight, so you stow them in your checked luggage.

I’m now on my THIRD Opinel garden knife, because the TSA people at LAX see them as a threat:

“Cain’t take no knives on thuh errplane”.

Or they just like them.

The goons in Boston are just as bad.

Flying back last August, they EMPTIED out a carefully packed suitcase (vinyls and books cushioned securely..) and slung everything back in willy-nilly.

The vinyl survived, Steven Heller’s “100 ideas that changed graphic design”  didn’t.

Sod it.

I’ve had enough.

Downloaded and filled out the Tort Claim Package and lodged it.

And waited.

And waited.

April comes around and with it a letter quoted chapter and verse of the Federal Tort Claims Act on how to get the money, one of the requirements being a Social Security number.

Told them that I wasn’t one of them (but not an undocumented alien, no,no…} and what do I do?

Wait, for a start.

No, that’s cool, we’re Equal Opportunity Destroyers – we’ll fuck up foreigners’ shit, too.

Cheque arrives today.

Cost for processing is probably going to be around…..oh…$27.96