A Keyboard-Laced Trombone Case
I have a really weird (or just stupid depending on who you asked) sense of humor. Long story short: I glued a computer keyboard onto my trombone case. I just glued a qwerty on my case. A harmless conversation starter, if you will. I’d had it for a couple months when I decide to go visit family. I’ll bring my trombone! Great idea! But when I get to security… Here’s how it all went down
I start seeing TSA and I slowly realize why this is bad. The keyboard is to my leg as I hold it so no one can really see it. I manage to get to the X-ray without a problem and its looking good. It’s on the belt. Fits through the hole and I’m hoping the X-ray lady sees that the keyboard serves no function and there are no weapon wires running through my case. Fingers crossed. But when she looks at me and uses her radio I know what she saw. I forgot about the mechanical lyre. The 3 or 4 bottles of slide oil and cream. And the 3 feet of metal coiled cleaning wire. So this thing looks like weapon central.
That’s when a TSA miraculously appeared. Like they only pulled him out for special occasions because he wasn’t anywhere in the terminal when I got there. And I can see why. This gentleman is 6’6 and probably 230lb of mostly muscle. He grabs me and brings me into that “additional screening” room. (I feel like this is a good time to mention I’m a nerdy overweight 16-year-old band geek).
So he starts interviewing me which is basically just going back and forth between “Why do you have that?” “I don’t know” “Is it yours?” “Yeah but I just thought it’d be funny” “Why do you have that?” All the while I’m watching TSA agents tear apart my case and what looks like messing up my trombone, but they literally can’t get past the keyboard.
They took everything out of the case so all that’s left is a keyboard and black cloth and they just kept swiping it with that explosive detection cloth. For like 5 minutes I watched a TSA lady with the most concentrated face and two pairs of gloves wipe every nook and cranny on my case.
Needless to say, I’m absolutely freaking out and that’s when the big dude leaves and an old gray haired guy comes in and explains that I’m not going to be able to take my “object.” And I’m lucky he’s going to let me fly at all.