If you’re a geek traveler with a backpack full of gadgets, perhaps you’ve also obsesivelly thought of how to make this tedious part of travelling as fast and issue free as possible.
Here’s my ritual for the damn TSA Security Line.
I usually travel with:
– A jacket since most places I travel to are cold, or the plane cabin could be cold.
– Backpack
– My laptop.
– iPad, Kindle, SLR Camera.
– Belt for my pants, I used to not bring belts so I wouldn’t have to take them off before the line (that’s how obsessive I am about this)
BEFORE YOU GET INTO THE X-RAY CONVEYOR BELT LINE:
If you are wearing a jacket, place EVERYTHING that you have in your pant pockets (that means wallet, cellphone, keys, coins, etc) except your ID/Boarding pass on your jacket pockets, zip em up if you jacket has zippers. If you don’t have a jacket, or your jacket doesn’t have zippers in the pockets, it’s preferable that you put all these things inside one of the outer pockets of your backpack.
WHILE ON THE X-RAY CONVEYOR BELT LINE:
After you’ve given the go by the security officer and you’re about to grab the plastic trays, take your shoes, belt and jacket off and place them on a container.
Immediatly, open your backpack, take your laptop out, put it on a second container, STACK this container on top of the one holding your jacket/belt/shoes.
Then for the iPad,Kindle,SLR camera grab a third plastic container, and again, STACK IT on top of the other two, now you are carryng everything on a smaller area and more people can walk in behind you towards the x-ray machine conveyor belt.
Put your backpack ahead of the containers, and then start unstacking things in the order you prefer, I like having my jacket and shoes first, then my laptop, and then the rest, so I can put my shoes on, restack everything on the other end, and walk to the area where you can sit and re-arrange.
This way you won’t block the line after your things have been scanned and there’s less of a chance you will forget anything.
Oh, and make sure you wear white socks, you don’t want to be profiled as a crazy eastern terrorist by wearing thin black socks.
Obsessive-compulsive Cheers