We have ways of making you look like a twat...
Anyone who’s read my answer to the ‘Shame’ QOTW will know that Airport security and I have a chequered relationship. But it’s not just confined to projectile vomiting on check-in staff, oh no…

Coming back from the land of bureaucracy (or Germany as it says on the map), I had my bag searched at the airport. The impassive german security guard went through my stuff, finding nothing of interest until he comes across that potentially most dangerous of weapons, a tampon. He held it up, quizzically saying ‘Wass is das?’ ‘It’s a tampon’, I replied (in English as my German goes as far as ‘Bier, bitte’.) He obviously was unfamiliar with the word, so he asked again, more loudly and going slightly redder in the face. I did the traditional British thing of ‘if they can’t understand you, speak more slowly and loudly’. Nope, he just shouted a bit louder back. So I realised there was nothing for it but to mime. I took it off him, unwrapped it, showed him the little cardboard tube thingy, pointed out the absorbent inner core, then pointed at my downstairs lady bits. He looked, if possible, even more confused and angry. Thank god at that point a female guard came over, clocked what was happening, shrieked ‘KLAUS, NEIN…’ and thrust my bag back at me, while dragging him off to presumably explain the fine points of women’s hygiene products. I swear I thought I was going to have to actually shove the damn thing in to make my point that it wasn’t loaded.

I’ve also been made to hop through security with a broken foot as the jobsworth behind the desk thought my crutches were packed with explosives and took them away to be dismantled. He made me hop through four times for him and his mates amusement… Tweezer confiscating cnut…
(Rakky, Mon 6 Mar 2006, 13:08, Reply)