I just went through TSA pre check where they swab my hands and booty (the wheelchair cushion… same thing). For the first time in all the many flights and security checks, the swab of my hands came back as an alarm. These alarms go off when any combination of select chemicals are detected, any of which are supposedly dangerous.
As a result of this alarm, they did additional swabs on most of my things and then patted me down.
After going through the process of wheelchair security checks so many times, I’ve noticed many flaws. Not until today have I considered what might possibly be the largest. Swabbing my hands is only illogical and useless. For anyone else, it makes sense. Swab their hands to get a sort of history of what that person has touched recently. For me, or anyone who uses a wheelchair, swabbing my hands is the equivalent of swabbing the bottom of a normal person’s shoes. My hands contain not only what I’ve touched, but whatever is on the street and floor of the airport via the wheels I touch.
Along with this, they refused to swab my hands a second time to check for a false positive. Once they did the additional swabbing and pat down and everything came back clean, I was “free to go.” How will we know if this was a false positive or that there really was something detected on my hands?
If my hands did have something (positive positive), and since I’m innocent, we would know that I touched something that caused the alarm to activate. After that, we also don’t know for what exact chemical the alarm activated. I’ve been told that going through grass recently fertilized will set off the alarm. That would be good to know if it detected that chemical. Maybe I went through a yard or was behind a farmer as I walked up to the security check. In the same manner, if the chemical detected were serious, then there must be some way it got on the wheelchair wheels and then to my hand. In that case, there could be someone amongst us that should be checked out.
Next time I go through security, I’m going to ask why they don’t swab the wheelchair tires. I expect a response about how the wheels could have been anywhere. If I get them in my verbal trap, I’ll happily tell them that my hands are touching these tires more than almost anything else (in the context of going through the airport). I wonder what they’ll say. I wonder if there’s any way I can bring this oversight to someone’s attention to get this changed. Additionally, I’m going to be sure to travel with hand sanitizer to use before going through security because nothing is worse than being innocent but treated the opposite.
A few more thoughts. Public bathrooms more and more disgust me. I remember hearing about how in Rome, they all just used the bathroom in some open area with no walls or anything. Aside from the lack of privacy and if this is true or not, I think the open air part is great. The last thing I ever want to do is go into a closed room where many people have done their stinkiest business. I know most bathrooms have ventilation, but there’s nothing that can compare to open sky ventilation. I feel similar about airplanes. People cough, they smell bad, they have smelly food, and I’ve never heard of anyone skipping a flight because they’re sick. If I ever want to empathize with all the cheap unethically sourced meat that I consume, I would recall all the flights I’ve been on.
PS. Note to self, don’t be too much of a cynic
Wheelchair DNA 