Earlier this September, Ethel Maze of Circleville was preparing for her annual trip to Disney World in Orlando, Florida. Maze, who runs the Maze Residential Care Home, was making this trip with 18 disabled veterans. As they were all hopping aboard for the trip to the airport, the group’s designated “Bag Handler”, Mike Groleau, mentioned to Maze that he saw one of her bags wiggling. He didn’t seem concerned about it, so Maze thought nothing of it, either.
Over 10 hours later, Maze was safely inside her hotel room. Anxious to get the festivities underway, she left the room without even opening her suitcase. It would be several more hours before Maze returned to her room and popped open her suitcase for the first time. And that’s when she found, nestled among her personal items, her 10-month-old cat, Bob-Bob (a cat so nice they apparently named him twice).
–from Jacob Langston/Orlando Sentinel
Incredibly, Bob-Bob had somehow managed to survive being inside the suitcase for close to 12 hours. Not to mention being chucked all over the place by various baggage handlers, as well as possibly going through screening at Port Columbus International Airport. In fact, Bob-Bob seemed perfectly fine, although Maze was going to have him checked at an Orlando vet just to make sure…and to possibly get Bob-Bob some tranquilizers for the return trip.
The Transportation Security Administration (TSA) had a response to the whole event: “Our machines are very sensitive to picking up explosives and other threats to aviation.”
Read the full story, complete with accompanying video, here.
——————–
OK, I get it; sometimes things slip past the TSA. It happens. But a “wiggling” bag somehow managed to get past these guys? I’ve been pulled off lines at the airport and subjected to patdowns that made me feel like I was a teenager again in the back of my Ford Escort on some desolate Lovers’ Lane. And all for nothing more than looking like, in my opinion, your average portly 40-something schmuck. But a wiggling suitcase doesn’t even raise a single eyebrow?
That’s not to say it’s all the TSA’s fault. What’s up with Maze’s baggage guy just casually mentioning the bag moving and then forgetting about it? I don’t know about you guys, but if someone who’s loading up my bags tells me “hey, man, one of your bags is wiggling”, I’m going to take a peek inside. Heck, if I’m loading someone else’s bag and it starts to wiggle, I’m going to take a peek inside…or at least listen for muffled cries or perhaps an ever-widening dark stain under the bag.
