The Most Frustrating TSA Experience

This is not recent but I ran across this sub and still tell people this story. My wife has heard it every single time we fly together.

I used to fly for work twice a month, generally to Nashville, San Antonio or Virginia. I would be gone for a week at a time when I would travel for work. Well the one thing most towns have is a bowling alley and I was an avid bowler. Since I loved bowling I always took my bowling bag as one of my carry ons. I had 3 balls that I used but the bag I took was a single ball bag.

I did this for over a year while traveling. A couple of times TSA did open the bag and swipe the ball which was just fine. I get it, we have to be careful.

One late November, close to Thanksgiving I was flying out of San Antonio. I got to the airport, checked my luggage and proceeded to tsa. I untied my shoes in line, took everything out of my pockets and tossed in my backpack with the exception of ID and phone. I don't like to take up time in the line with all of that. I throw my stuff on the belt including my bowling bag. Meander through the detector and then I see the agent grab my bowling ball. No alarm at all. It has happened before so I wait. He then gets a disgruntled look when a supervisor comes over.

He brought the bowling bag over to me "sir, you can't travel with this". I am sure the look on my face was that of full on confusion. I said "ummm why?". "Well we can't see the inside of it". I said "but it's a bowling ball". "Well you can't carry it on". I said "I have literally flown dozens of times, even out of this airport with that exact ball". Then I asked "can't you just swipe it like they do every other time?" "No sir" he said. You have to go check it.

With the line being about 50 minutes, I had to go back and check the ball for, I believe $30.00. I went back through and was literally the last person on the plane. Once I sat down, I went back to the TSA website and sure as shit, it specifically stated bowling balls are acceptable. I was so pissed and still confused at this point as to why they did that.