Unexpected Item Found in the Check-in Area －チェックインエリアで見つかった思わぬアイテム－

Have you ever been stopped by overzealous security staff at an airport?

One time when I travelled from Tokyo to the UK via Dubai, a member of security at Narita Airport seemed to get really suspicious of my white cane (used by blind people.)  She thoroughly inspected the cane, made me take my shoes off, patted my body all over, and then gave me really confusing instructions that a blind person could not understand.

“Ugoite kudasai,” she said, which means, “Please move.”

“Move how?” I was thinking.  “Do you want me to dance or something?”

I heard later that she was pointing to the side, to show me in which direction to move.  But how was a blind person supposed to see that?  Maybe she was trying to test if I was really blind or was just pretending!

But I have some sympathy with security staff at airports.  Passengers do sometimes act strangely, and they sometimes do try to bring aboard dangerous items.

There was a story a couple of weeks ago from Israel.  An American family who were on holiday there found an unexploded shell lying on the ground, at the site of a former war between Israel and Syria.

The tourists wanted to take the unexploded shell back to America as a souvenir.  So when they got to the airport, they took out the shell and asked, “Can we put this in our suitcase?”

When a security guard saw the item, she tried to get people to evacuate the area in case it exploded.  Unfortunately, some people misunderstood and assumed that the airport was under attack from terrorists, and people began running away in panic.  One man fell off the escalator and had to be taken to hospital.

The amazing thing is that, after the confusion and panic had died down, the American family were allowed to board their flight back to the US (without the unexploded shell.)

And I made it back to the UK with my cane too, quite excited to have been touched all over by a female security guard.  I always try to look a little suspicious when I go to airports now.

 

Vocabulary:

overzealous – having or showing too much energy or dedication to a cause or principle

For example, “The staff at the bank made me fill out the form again because I stamped my name in slightly the wrong place.  I think they were overzealous in applying the rules.”