E7 - Will Halliden - Life in the TSA

Will talks about his experience working for the TSA. We talk about government work, temper tantrums at the airport, and crazy things he's seen go down at the airport. 

Tune in to learn why the TSA matters!

Fact Check*** The CT scanners cost $350k, not $3 million.

Transcript

Unknown: All right. Hello, everyone. Lovely listeners of Next Stop, Chicago. Today we have a friend of mine who I haven't seen in a long time. His name is Will Halliden. But before I tell you what he does, I just want to let you guys know. So this guy started college with me, like, 2016. And, like, we hung out all the time, got up to fuck shit all the time. And then at one point, he had strep throat or bronchitis or some shit, and then he went back and we didn't see him. The rest of the year came back the next year. We saw him for like half a year and he was gone. And then we didn't see him for a while and then for like five years or whatever, we didn't hear anything from this man. Like this dude was a ghost. No Instagram, no phone calls, no text. I was texting. I'm like, Bro, you good? At one point, I was like, My only concern. I was like, Is this dude alive? I'm like, I just want to make sure he's alive. But he's alive. He, uh, visited us. He visited me today in Chicago, stayed the weekend, and he has some fun stories, so I figured I'd have him on the pod and just, like, let you guys chuckle a little, get you a little insight into who he is, what he's gotten up to. Um, and so what does Wil Halloran do? What's your middle name? Neidhart William Neidhart hollered, and I said, Like, my mom, dude, he works for the T. S motherfucking A and he's going to share a few tidbits about his time with all the crazies at the airport. And we're going to have a fun little chat about what the TSA does, how how he fits into it, all the crazy people he's met. And just general, I will go on a tangent about how airport culture is disgusting. And it's like like the only place you get a drink at like 7 a.m. and it's socially acceptable, only place where you can, like, throw fit and we're like, Oh, great, he's throwing a fit. And like, I don't know, people lose their senses in an airport sometimes. But anyway, well, welcome. Say some things to the pot, say some things to the people. Thank you for having me. Yeah, I mean, I'm a TSO have been for about a year and eight months coming up on two years. Most interesting job I've ever had, without a doubt. It always reminds me of this thing I heard on cops one time. They're introducing the police officer while they're driving around, and the cop says, My dad always said that being a cop is a ticket to the greatest show on earth. And that's the best description I have for for working at the TSA 100%. You see a lot of crazy shit. You see a lot of crazy people, I'm assuming, at the airport. Which airport is this? This is Dulles in the Washington, D.C. metro region. Or DMV? And the DMV. Yeah, it it's a pretty good airport to work at. It's very old. But, you know, there's not something memorable that happens every day. But at least every other day there's a story that is memorable enough to be to be written down and recorded by me just so I can remember it later. But yeah, it's a lot of interesting people. It's a very international airport. There's a lot of departures, there's a lot of arrivals. It's a very diverse environment. Just like the school I went to in high school. And, you know, I get to work with quite a few different people. It's not just old people, it's not just young people. I would say it mostly skews towards the older people in terms of the people that have been at the TSA for a long time. But, you know, a lot of younger people as well, people you wouldn't expect to be working at the TSA. But for a lot of people, it's just it's a foot in the door for for the government. And a lot of people will end up moving to CBP, to other law enforcement agencies before enforcement. Before you go on with all these government acronyms, I just want you to know, none of us know these folks. I will explain all of them. So. Okay. But CBP, Customs and Border Patrol, DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, a lot of people go to the Secret Service or uniformed Secret Service or, you know, Secret Service, I guess, in the office. But it's it's a revolving door for the federal government. So that's how people get their foot in the doors with the TSA. And they're usually able to transition to other places in the government fairly easily, some because you said you work with like people with master's degrees, people with like PhDs, whatever, the whole hoopla right now, it's not a lot of them, but yeah, quite a few people with college degrees who they just needed the experience, you know, the government experience and that's how they're getting it. Believe it or not, people always find the surprising. There are quite a few former military guys I work with, a couple of Marines, I work with a couple active duty National Guard people as well. Quite a few former law enforcement officers, you know, that were in law enforcement, local law enforcement. Now there's the TSA and they're trying to get into, you know, one guy as he's trying to be Capitol Parks Police. So, like I said, just a good foot in the door for the government and a lot of them are able to transit. And usually within 2 to 3 years. So the turnover is such that like the majority of people have not been in the TSA for longer than five years. And so you're working, if I remember correctly, you were on the night shift for a while or the early morning shift. Yeah, yeah. I'm still on the night shift. I'm just doing collateral duty, which is basically administrative work. Every, let's say every couple of weeks, there's what's called a sustainment, where you go back to the checkpoint. Mm hmm. And you basically just keep up on your. Your knowledge, right? Your skills, and then you go back to the office. Okay, well, now it's time you've you've laid down kind of what the TSA is in a nutshell. We're here for the the crazy shit. So I want to I want to know some stories. Yeah. So the one that's that's top of my head is it also revolves around the government. But this is the one that comes to the very top. My mind is working on pre-check. A lot of a lot of pre-check. That's where you see most of the freak outs, most of the entitled people, which is crazy because you don't have to pay that much for tsa precheck. I don't know why they're so entitled. $80 for five years. Yeah, $16 a year. Just a lot of Louis Vuitton bags, soccer moms, wine moms, whatever you want to call them. And generally speaking, a lot more, you know, government people. So, you know, State Department, that kind of thing. And we had a guy that came through, he had a medical device. And when you come through the medical device, you go through the metal detector because that's the main form of screening at the at the pre-check checkpoint as opposed to the body scanner. Well, he came through and he quoted. And all that means is that he was just randomly selected for additional screening. You'll hear a beep, a different, you know, toned beep, and it'll basically select them. You send them the body scanner as soon as I start explaining to them what need to happen or what he should do, he said, No, I'm absolutely not going through that body scanner. That thing is full of radiation. Usually I would try to explain to them, No, that's not how it works. You know, it's millimeter wave technology. And I realized quickly that by the time they had already decided not to go through it, the whole speech was utterly worthless because they never changed their mind. And that's okay. You know, that's completely all right. They're allowed to believe what they want to believe. And he said, I'm not going through that. And I said, okay, all right. Well, sir, you're going to have to get a pat down. And that's when the not quite crying, but the upset part of his his personality came out and he started saying, well, at this airport, at the other airport, they just test your hands and you're good to go. And I said, Well, this is a different airport. We do different things. We have different, you know, responsibilities for for screening, as stupid as that is, to have different things happen at different airports. That's just how it was. Those are the rules for us. So explain to him he's going to get a pat down. I let him through. I said, Sir, point out your stuff and then we can go to one of the private screening rooms. And at this point, he's still putting up a fight. For some reason, he didn't want to go to the private screening room. And I'm, you know, clearly saying, let's just do that instead. It's probably me better. And I don't know if you want to have that freak out in front of other people, you know, in the in the hope that other people would chime in and, you know, come to his defense. But one of the supervisors saw what was happening, saw us having a spirited debate and came over, you know, big, tall guy basically just loomed over the guy looking at him. I was hoping at some point he would chime in, you know, a little bit more power. You know, maybe the guy would start listening. Yeah, exactly. And didn't say a word, just kind of stood over him. I almost think that was better. And so finally, Guy relents, like, all right, let's go to the private screening room. Once we got there, he basically started a tantrum explaining that he had a top secret security clearance and that if the government trusts him, why should we not trust him saying, oh, you know, we you guys don't have to do this. You guys don't have to do this. Please, you know, it's just a medical device. And I said, sir, these these are rules. Let's just you know, if you hadn't been arguing, we could have been this could have gotten this done by now. Right. And so it just keeps going on and on and on about his top secret security clearance, you know, and it was just it was just ridiculous. People with security clearances aren't even supposed to tell other people that they have that that clearance. And, you know, he was saying that anyways, you know, you're trying to get out of it. Yeah. There's no there's no way out of it. You think you actually had security clearance? I mean, if the way he was saying it, he probably did. And that's scary to me then if he didn't because you shouldn't be telling other PE there's a reason you don't tell people that. It's because you're more susceptible to blackmail, you know, and foreign influence. You don't tell other people that you have that right. Same way you know, they don't want people. With debt in the government. Lots of debt more susceptible to foreign influence. Really? Yeah, well, it does. Think about it. The Russians could come to you. And, you know, this is obviously, you know, complete hypothetical. But the Russians could come to you and find out, you know, they there's a guy working in the State Department or, you know, you know, an embassy, if, you know, the guy is $50,000 in debt, you know, credit card debt, let's say they could come to him, be like, we'll pay off the debt for you, then you just need to get us a few things. And that's that's how it's worked before. It's really that easy. Yeah. I mean, when they do, that is the reason they do credit checks for the State Department background investigations because they want to know those type of things. Now, you're not necessarily going to be denied because you have debt, but if you've got $400,000 in debt, there's a solid chance that they will not give you a clearance, you know? Yeah, yeah. For that exact reason. Yeah. We get plenty of plenty of government officials that come through fairly entitled thinking. Well, if the government trust them, you know, to have this clearance, you know, why shouldn't they be trusted to go through screening? Well, sir, anytime you enter a checkpoint, you're submitting yourself for screening. It's all voluntary, right? Everything we do is is compliance space. And I've always thought that that's the most important part, because if you don't have compliant people, you're not you're not doing a good job of screening. Right. Which is why I still don't understand why people why TSOs get so angry. You know, I've realized since the beginning that the nicer you are, the easier it is for you to do your job. So how often do you have passengers coming through this this checkpoint who are just not abiding, not complying? Like, what do you what if it's like some person that genuinely is not complying? He's they are refusing to go in there, refusing to follow your orders. Does that just cause a complete standstill? Do you just tell them, hey, well, go home. Like, what do you do? No, you you always work around them. You know, if they're refusing to go through any type of scanner, they get a pat down. There are very few people I can recall in my mind that have just refused to do any part of the screening. Usually it's they refused one part of it. And you know, this and this will happen. But it's not it's not very often that's it's few and far between that you get people that you know, you know, don't know what everything is. Most people that don't know what all that stuff is, they're usually pretty, pretty compliant with, you know, wanting to go through. I've found that the first time fliers are the most intent listeners because they don't understand the process. You know, they they want to listen as much as they can figure out what's actually going on. The international people are always very, very good in terms of that. It's the people that fly all the time that tend to, you know, drown out what you're saying. And they're the most forgetful people in terms of, oh, I've been doing this so much. You get, you know, a little bit oblivious. And they're usually the ones that forget a phone in their pocket or or whatever else. So but, you know, if I may be honest, like I've flown a few times this year and I've done a fair amount in my life. I think post-COVID flying has just become awful, like going through security, like I go through O'Hare mainly, right. And I hate O'Hare. Like it's always packed. They always send you to this, like, tunnel, this like long line that like swirls and curls and all that good stuff. And then it's like there's one checkpoint and then it's like, okay. And then it's like, you know, it's like, what, 300 people getting, like, funneled into the small little area. And I'm like, there's got to be a better way to do this. Like, why is this so just painstakingly annoying? Yeah. I mean, the queuing, honestly, in our airport is not too bad. And I can't speak to O'Hare. I mean, I have seen what O'Hare looks like and I've looked at their their checkpoint. But I would think that that mostly comes down to staffing. You know, if they've only got one checkpoint open, you know, maybe there are some people sitting around doing nothing, which is usually the case but standing around. There you go. Yeah, that's probably what's what's happening. But sometimes they just don't have enough staff. It's very hard to, one, get people hired and to keep them on for for longer than four or five years. Right. Because it's a revolving door. But yeah, generally speaking, you know, there are a lot of airports we don't really have the same issue, but there are a lot of airports that that literally have to get TSOs from other airports. Right. We send a lot of people on MDO, which is the basically the deployment force. And, you know, we've gotten people that go to Portland, Oregon, Portland, Maine, Austin, Texas is a big one. Austin is absolutely terrible. I mean, you know, wait times of hours. Right. And because it's just they don't have enough people, you know. O'Hare is probably the same issue. Yeah. And queuing is always, always difficult. Americans, generally speaking, don't know how to queue. You know, we don't like lines. We don't like lines. No, definitely not. People are always surprised when they get to Dulles. And so long as you don't come between the hours of 630 and eight and 1030 and 12, there's basically no line at all, at least during the wintertime. Sometimes in the morning. In the morning. Yeah. There's, you know, there's no line, although I've never seen it like this. I'm like, well, you probably came, you know, right at the busiest time. So that's probably why. But, you know, we have banks, all the bank is is it's just the most crowded time. It's peak time. Mm hmm. And, you know, it gets gets pretty busy. Nothing. Nothing too crazy. But, yeah, most people come within that. That time frame. Right. I don't know what the exact number is, but I would say that a large majority of people only show up an hour or earlier to their domestic flight, which is pretty crazy. It's really short. And they're always surprised when, you know, something happens. The bag needs to get checked. Something's wrong with their boarding pass, and then they only have 40 minutes to then get through security and get to their flight. You know, because we have three airports in the DMV region, there's BWI, Baltimore, there's DCA, which is it's it's a DC one, but it's mainly for domestic flights. And then we've got Dulles, which is the international one. DC DCA has about as many departures, not as many passengers going through, but we get people all the time. And these are airports that are fairly far apart. It's it's hard to confuse them. Right. Right. You got Reagan National Airport and you've got Dulles. At least every day you get a person who comes up, they've got something wrong with their boarding pass. And so sometimes they'll have the digital boarding pass, sometimes they'll have the paper one. You'll ask them, okay, do you have a paper copy and or you'll look at their their mobile boarding pass. And I always say, you know, sir, ma'am, I'm very sorry to have to tell you this, but you're supposed to be at the other airport. Fuck. And they freak out. I happens a lot of at least every day, maybe every other day. But yeah, it happens all the time. And obviously, you know, there are people that are unfamiliar with the area. I still don't quite understand how that happens. You know, if you get a taxi driver and you just say, take me to the airport, they're going to Dulles or DCA, and you're gonna say, Oh, well, let me look at my, I mean look at my boarding pass. Mhm. Or if you're, you know, having a family member take you there, family member is going to know okay is it DCA or Dulles. So I just don't quite understand how that happens. But you just try to keep them calm down. Okay. Well, you know, you can go up to the airlines, see if you can get your your flight rebooked to this airport or just cancel it outright. You know, very few people come to the airport with enough time to actually go and then get to DCA. So yeah, it's, it's unfortunate, but yeah, it happens. It happens quite a bit more than you would think. So here's, like, something. Mm hmm. Cause I have gripes at the TSA. A lot of people do. And honestly, I understand them. But those more than you would think for for a TSO. So, you know, like for me, it seems like a lot of, um, security theater. Like, I understand that it's, it's useful, but a lot of it seems kind of like overkill, right? Like, so, for example, taking off my shoes, like, I understand there was a shoe bomber. I'm not, like, not going to be like, I'm not taking off my shoes, you know? But there has to be a machine that can look through my shoes, you know, like if there's a bomb in there or whatever, like there has to be, you know, technology for that. Or it's like, how is it that at one one airport they're like, keep your laptop and all that in there in your bag. And then I go to the next airport, like take everything out of your bag. I'm like, Why? Why is it a one airport? It's this easy. Why isn't this airport? Is this fucking hard? Like, what's the deal with that? So a lot of the times it you know, it depends on the airport. Different airports have different directives. Right, which allow them to screen a certain way. Most of the time when people say, you know, I was allowed to keep my my computer in my bag at one airport or, you know, for instance, I was allowed to keep my shoes on. Most of the time it comes down to at least for the shoes. Right. So we have we have a type of screening that uses dogs, right? Canines. And basically you line up a big group of people. They walk across this rectangular box with a red line in the middle and a dog basically swerves in and out of these two lines of people. Oh, that's cool. At that point, at least, our at our airport, they're screened as as pre-check people. So you can keep your shoes on. You get to keep the stuff in your bag. And, you know, that's usually how that works. I would assume that that's the case for. For the airports, you know, that allow you to keep your shoes on. It's probably that it might not be they might have a different directive, but most of the time that's probably what it's going to be. And at least for our airport, the computers in the bag, we're allowed to we're allowed to do it that way. We have CT scanners. Mm hmm. Not a lot of airports have CT scanners. You said they're like $3 million or something, if I can recall. $2.4 million. Oh, my God. For that specific scanner. One scanner for once again. Wow. And that's another reason why we don't have body scanners that allow you to keep your shoes on. It's just. It's about money, you know? Yeah, it's I mean, it's crazy. And, you know, when we had the roll out of these machines, we were not very excited at first. You know, obviously, we had to learn how to use this this new machine. Right. But there were a lot of issues. Clearly, there was not a lot of testing done on it. And that necessarily didn't necessarily mean that there was you know, there was less security. It's just that there were a lot of, you know, tangential things that, you know, hadn't been thought about, you know, when you actually put it on at a checkpoint. There were just certain things they didn't think about. You know, they had a lot of bag jams. Right. And those take time to fix. Uh huh. Generally speaking, it's slower, you know? So it's great. Yeah. You get to keep your computer in your bag, you don't take anything out, but they're slower. You know, you only take a certain amount of time per bag and then you have to move on. But it's great because it automatically diverts the bag so you don't have to, you know, basically pull the bag off the belt. But, you know, there were good things about the old the old X-ray, and they're good things about the new CT scanner. But yeah, just cost a lot of money for this equipment. And, you know, we have certain things that need to be replaced that probably won't get replaced for, you know, quite a few years. You know, we're not any worse at doing their jobs. It's just that they take a lot more to maintain. And, you know, there's a lot more downtime when they do need to be maintained, you know, so. So to add on to that. Right. Another thing that I feel like everyone feels about the the TSA is like they miss most of the shit like is in I heard a stat it's like you guys missed like 60% of everything or something. And earlier you were telling me that's usually like the pre-check. People are like the worst offenders. You said you've had people like carry in arms, right? Like weapons. And there's like a so just that they're generally speaking most of the firearms majority of the firearms are found on TSA PreCheck checkpoints. I don't know if that's just because people are more comfortable or if there's a higher number of gun ownership with TSA PreCheck enrolled individuals. I don't know what the exact reason for it is, but yeah, most of the guns are found at pre-check and at least for at least for pre-check individuals, the the best thing is that you know, once that happens is that they're no longer enrolled in pre-check. They basically get demoted to, you know, standard screening. Right. With the plebeians. Right with the plebeians, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, a large majority of the firearms are loaded with around chain. What the fuck. So, you know, ready to go. And you know, the way I think of it as, you know, my definition of a threat to the airport and to airline safety, aircraft safety is a person trying to come into the sterile area, sterile areas, the place, pass the checkpoint. Right. The public is sterile area. That's what you guys call it. That's what they call it. It's a little funny. It is it is kind of funny because you think of, you know, medical operating theater, but it's called the sterile area. And my my idea of a threat is somebody trying to come into the sterile area with a firearm. Right. That I would deem that a threat. It's a big threat. The problem lies in that a lot of the time what people say is, oh, I just forgot. Mm. It's very hard to prove intent with catching a gun at the checkpoint, you know. How do you prove that they had an intent to come in, to come into the airport and, you know, shoot down a plane or take down a plane? It's very difficult. So and what was the other thing you mentioned, too? What about the TSA? Oh, my thing was like, right. So you're telling me about the pre-check people and usually they're the worst offenders of shit that they just bring in, for example, firearms that you guys miss like 60% of everything. Thank you for bringing that up again. So those numbers come from the red team. So the red team is, as far as I know, is an independent body. So it's not in the TSA, but it's basically responsible for running tests on the TSA. Right. Do you guys pay them or. No, I don't believe so. Okay. But yeah, don't quote me on that. Like I said, as far as I know, they're an independent body, which is why probably why they released that information to the TSA. Probably wouldn't do that. Or at least we don't. Release our internal testing data. We also have internal people that run tests. And so, you know, you'll have the test that the the internal TSA people do. And then the red team, the red team basically role play passengers. Right. So, you know, they're basically a passenger until, you know, you figure out otherwise. But yeah, a lot of time they'll do tests. I don't remember what the exact number was, but yeah, whatever that number is, it's it's pretty accurate. So we haven't had too many issues of guns being let through the checkpoint. But it does happen. No system is 100%, 100% perfect. But what happens if a gun gets into the sterile zone? How do you even know if the gun got through the sterile zone? Well, so a lot of the time, if a gun gets through the sterile zone, you know, I guess the few individuals where that did happen, they obviously did not have the intent to to shoot down the plane. Uh huh. And sometimes they will they will volunteer themselves and and basically come to, you know, airline personnel or airline representatives. And they will, you know, say, I brought a gun through the checkpoint. Wow. And, you know, obviously, they still have to have get involved with law enforcement, um, you know, thankful to those people and the ones that do remember. But sometimes they don't realize until they get to another airport. And if they're getting screened in another airport, you know, if they're going to another country, they're very likely going to be screened by that country. And we actually just had a a Oregon representative that had a firearm in his luggage. And I believe he went to Hong Kong, I think it was. And he he was arrested by by Chinese authorities. Wow. Yeah. Because all because he had a gun in his bag. Yeah. I hear, like, terrifying stories of, like, people they, like, fly to Japan, right? Or like they have, like, an Adderall prescription or something in their bag. And and the authorities are like, what is this? And it's like, you know, they face some serious trouble because they forgot, like, whatever, it's out of the I understand. Like the rules are different across the world, but that always terrifies me. Like forgetting something that's not allowed in a foreign country. Go to that country and then being like them, yelling at me like, What is this? And I'm in like deep shit. Like, that's always a Yeah, I mean, and it happens. And, you know, we don't look for drugs. What people tend to confuse us with CBP shut us. You don't look for drugs. We don't look for drugs. What's I don't it's crazy to me that people think that we do. I don't know where they got that idea. I thought you guys looked for drugs. Nope. We think about it this way. We look for stuff that will take a plane down. What if a guy on crack? You had a pound of fentanyl in the plane and it was just air slicing and flying everywhere. The chances of that taking down the plane are pretty slim to none. You've got to, you know, harden cockpit door in between the passengers and the pilots. And they've got I would imagine they have their own air supply, right? I'm pretty sure they do. It's a sealed off environment that kind of is a sterile environment in and of itself. Right inside the plane. No. CBP's job is to look for drugs. Our job is to look for stuff that will take down a plane. Explosives, firearms, tasers, that kind of thing. Wow. We do look for powders, which there are a lot of powders that are explosives. So we do look for those. So sometimes you'll stumble across drugs, cocaine. Do you take the drugs if you find them? So, yeah, you have to contact law enforcement and, you know, obviously they'll be confiscated. Okay. So if it's a scheduled substance, okay, so don't bring your drugs into the airport thinking you have a pass. Yeah, no, definitely. Definitely not. But we're not looking for those things. We're looking for stuff that will that will take down a plane. So, yeah, I mean, if we stumble across cocaine, you still have to contact law enforcement and, you know, any other drugs. Basically the same thing we're not looking for for pills or anything like that. It's a lot of powders, solids. That's what we're looking for, explosives. So and so like for you personally, how much satisfaction do you get? Do you feel like, oh, I'm playing a vital part and like I'm helping, you know, the system and like there's kind of like a level of pride that you have being a TSO or how, how is your perspective on your experience of being a teacher? So I mean, I'm not sure I'd use the word pride, not a, not a proud, but yeah, everybody plays their part, you know, every, you know, it's the government. So you are a cog in the machine. But you know, any time you, for instance, you know, catch a certain item, yeah, you do feel like, okay, I stop that. And you know, most times you're thinking, okay, well, that's probably not a. Person that was going to go, you know, do something bad on a plane. But it could have been. And you just don't know. So that item has to be taken regardless. You know, you catch a lot of pepper sprays and it feels bad. You know, I hate taking pepper sprays away from, you know, voluntarily a banning from women because I. I totally empathize. You know, that makes sense. They should they should want to carry those. They should be able to defend themselves. But you just can't bring it through an airport and we can't make exceptions. You know, obviously, exceptions are made, you know, at different airports. But you just you can't make exceptions because you just don't know the true intent of the person. You know, you would love to be able to believe them when they say they forgot in there. But what if that is the one time where they didn't just forget in there? They did bring it in and they wanted to do something bad, you know? So I do feel like I'm playing my part when I, you know, catch certain items, you know? But, you know, sometimes you just get upset when somebody else misses something, but you can't control other people. So, you know, it is hard sometimes. And so you said like earlier that there's like 50% that are very zealous about this idea of like preventing stuff from going in. And then there's like the other 50% that's just kind of like teams standing around, kind of like, I'ma just do my job clock and clock out. Yeah. I mean, yeah, there are definitely people that. 911 is a lot closer than for other people, if that makes sense. Mm hmm. There are a lot more. And if we have kids that weren't there, that weren't even alive on 911, so maybe like 18, right? Yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it's it's and you know, obviously for them, 911 is a much more abstract concept. Right. Uh huh. Because they weren't alive during it, you know, even though, you know, I was only three years old when it happened. I still have, you know, a connection to it that makes me you know, that gives me, you know, something to be like, okay, we don't want that ever happening again. You know, I'm going to do my part towards working towards that. You know, my dad worked in the Twin Towers for Dean Witter. You know, he's there for the 93 bombing. So, you know, it is really not an abstract concept. Even though I didn't remember at the time what happened, I was way too young. You know, I I'm a little bit more connected to it than, say, the 18 year old, you know, that just started working there. But the one thing you got to remember, at least our airport, is that our airport was one of the 911 airports. Some of the hijackers came through Dulles. So we're constantly reminded of that, you know, as we should be right, that some of the hijackers came through this airport. We are you know, we are a part of that history. Right. So, yeah, you get the people that. Yeah, for some of them, it is just a job, you know, same with same with everything. Some cops, some firefighters, some it's, you know, it's their duty. Uh huh. And then others. It's just a paying job. But I imagine I wouldn't say there's anything wrong with that necessarily, because obviously you're going to have the people who are super overzealous and, you know, are proud. You know, they could miss things or they could, you know, do something wrong. And you're going to have probably an equal number of people who it's just a job and they do something wrong. But for the most part, they do their jobs. You know, I mean, that's all you can ask. I'm not out here being like everybody, but definitely I. I don't think it's wrong for people to be asking more of any government official, let alone TSA officer. So, you know, I'm like, well, you know, I've given you a little bit of a hard time saying TSA, TSA, this and that. But in all truthfulness. Right. Like, it is an important job that you guys do and you guys are stopping explosives from getting on planes. So thank you for that. And we just did a fact check in this brief intermission that we recently had, and it was the red team. And they were. What did you say? The guy. Okay, I'll I'll do this real quick. The guy after that report happened, they fired the TSA, got a new one. But also, apparently his red team was like really good. Like they were an independent group funded by somebody or they're undercover federal agents. Yeah, that but yeah, they work for the Department of Homeland Security. And in that particular task that was widely publicized, they missed 57 out of 60 explosives or explosive devices, simulated explosive devices. So, yeah, they replaced the TSA administrator, got a new one. You know, I couldn't tell you what the what the numbers are now. You know, I have no idea. They've done plenty of red team tests at at Dulles. And, you know, some of some have passed the test. Some have failed the tests. But what I can say is that. The red team is very good at disguising themselves. They really are. So you figure out otherwise they really are any other passenger. So it does definitely keep us on our toes. We're always. Yeah, always thinking about red team. Always. Well, you know, you guys are a very important cog in the system, so I apologize for kind of busting your balls here at the TSA and this and that, but let's get a little we're one step. Just to interject, we're one step in a long line of steps before, you know, before they get to the pilots or taking over control of the plane. You got your local intelligence agencies, got local law enforcement. You've got the hardened cockpit door and then you've got the pilots. So we're just we're one one part of, you know, airline screening. So it makes it sound like some cool, like, operation shit. You know, it's like it ain't gonna get me hyped up for that's us motherfucking. Hey, man, I just watched Get Out. That was just great because the obviously the guy would say, oh, I can't say anything. Spoilers and they mentioned you just watched the movie. Yeah, but anyway, man, I want to get this a little more topical because the 17th, right, is when the government is supposedly going to shut down or they are threatening a shutdown. And I want to ask you, as a government worker, you know, I think it'd be interesting for people to hear your perspective on what actually happens when the government shuts down to real people. Like what what happens, you know, just your general put simply, you ain't getting paid. You still got to work because you're an essential, you know, essential employee. Central federal. Federal branch. Right. You're not getting paid. Most of the shutdowns usually last about two weeks. The one in 2019 with Trump lasted 35 days. But yeah, generally for a couple of weeks you're going to be missing a paycheck, you know, and you just it's uncertain. So you don't know, could this be the one that lasts 40 days? 45 days, right. How long are they going to bicker about Ukraine funding? You know, I haven't experienced one yet in the TSA. Obviously, we had the one last month that was about as close as you can get to not being a shutdown. It was like a couple hours before the deadline that they that they put the continuing resolution in, which lasts for another month. So, you know, it's great that we didn't shut down, but then we immediately knew that two weeks, you know, two weeks away or two weeks down the road, we'd be doing the exact same nail biting that we were doing before. Right. And, you know, there hasn't been a lot of talk about this this upcoming one. There's a lot of talk about the election for House speaker, but there wasn't a lot of talk of, you know, at least on the news about, you know, what's happening with the continuing resolutions. But the real scary one was the one in 2013 because we had just moved overseas and, you know, literally just gotten to your family. Yeah, we our family had just moved overseas. I was still in high school. And while we were still staying in the gatehouse of the U.S. ambassador's residence, which is where all the incoming families would go, is like a, you know, a transit point, you know, between getting their their actual housing. The government was shut down and that one was freaky because we didn't know. You know, we just you know, all of our stuff is on a shipping container going across the sea to get there. We're like, How are we gonna be able to stay here if nobody's getting paid? Like, what do we do in that scenario? You know, do we go back and, you know, thankfully that one didn't last very long, but that was about as uncertain as it gets. And we had just moved to a foreign country that we were completely unfamiliar with. So government say government shuts down. You're in a foreign country. What happens? So, I mean, at least for the time being, while we were there, you know, my dad wasn't getting any kind of pay. They were still, you know, allowing us to be housed there and they obviously were going to kick us out or anything. But yeah, it was uncertain because it could have gone on for another two weeks and at that point we probably would have had to go back to the United States. Obviously, my dad can't find a regular old job in, you know, in Prague, Czech Republic. He doesn't speak the language. Hmm. But in terms of, like, the actual, you know, behind the scenes stuff, I don't know too much because he was the one experiencing it firsthand. I was experiencing it second hand. I just remember being scared that we were going to have to then go back to the United States, you know, so and so your whole family were like your whole immediate family worked for the government, basically. Pretty much, yeah. Just about. Everybody let go. All your colleagues in the machine. That's interesting. So does government. Really? Yeah. It's weird, too, because, you know. Basically since the beginning, the only one that actually worked for the government was my dad. Uh uh. And then, you know, my mom was a divorce lawyer. And it wasn't until we got back to D.C. and my mom could no longer practice law because she's not, you know, she hasn't passed the bar in D.C.. Mhm. Um, she joined the State Department so and then my brother works for CDC or Carkey or whatever you want to call it. I'm not sure how those two are intertwined, but he technically works for the government. So as with many, you know, government contractors and whatnot. So no, I mean, a government job sounds nice, right? Like it's stable. Very stable until there's a government shutdown. Yeah. Minus the shutdowns. Yeah. Because I mean, the the real thing is, is like, how long do you let it go on for? Before you go, I need to find another job. A job that actually pays if it's going on for a month or longer. Yeah. You generally wonder, like, I may have to just leave and find another job. Yeah, because, you know, most people cannot go even two weeks without a paycheck. Most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. And that includes us, too. Right. Even with the pay raise. D.C. is a very expensive region, you know? Yeah. And I know, like, Amazon's moving in there and like, a lot of tech firms are moving in there. Yeah. And the real estate values are going through the roof and, you know, at least near Dulles. And the area I live in has, I think like one of the highest densities of data centers in the U.S.. Mhm. Is right near Dulles I think it's Reston, Virginia. So yeah, the space is not cheap. Not cheap at all. So, you know, a lot of people tend to live and I would say this has a lot to do with, you know, screening and you know, how people are, you know, exhausted all the time is because most of them are traveling an hour or ten hour to just to get to work and they're driving. So, you know, their days are lasting a lot longer. So we have some people that literally drive from West Virginia just to get to work. What's. Yep. Got a couple of people that live in West Virginia because the thing is, is West Virginia, you know, even though it is relatively far away, you can buy a house for $250,000. Right. And at that point, you go, okay, well, maybe it's worth it to have a three hour long commute. You know, if you can buy a house for $250,000, you're not buying a house return of $50,000 anywhere in the Northern Virginia region. It's just not happening. Not happening. No, man. So, okay, I guess this is like right. Like the podcast called Next Stop Chicago. But Will is not from Chicago. This is kind of like, yeah, I'm the outlier an outlier episode. I have a few of these just because I thought it would be fun to bring well on the pod and talk about the TSA and his life and all that. But I want to get to I want to put it back to Chicago. Shine a light on my city. And you shine the light away from your disgusting DMV region. I'm from Milwaukee, so that's close enough. It's even fucking worse from your shithole. Mini Chicago called Milwaukee. How do you like Chicago as a treat? Chicago. Great. Ah, I mean, I was telling you earlier, I have very cherished memories of driving to Milwaukee and you know, I wasn't a huge fan of Milwaukee back then, but one of the best parts of the road trip was getting to pass Chicago. You know, at least when I was like, what, 12, 13? I went to the museum with the U-boat. That's the only way I know I describe it. Museum of Science and History. Museum of Science and Industry. Love that. The first real trip that I, you know, actually had in Chicago out and about exploring was 2019, 2019 or 2018 and got to explore a lot more of the city, you know, went to the Sears or Willis Tower, whatever you guys call it now, I don't know. It's Willis, but if you're from Chicago, it's, uh. There you go. Sears Tower. So we'll pretend I'm from Chicago. You know, we went up there and I got to do the skybox, and I've never been more terrified in my entire life. I did not need to look down that far. I just thought about the picture opportunity, so my buddy convinced me to do it. He's afraid of heights, but he skydive. Someone explain that to me. Somebody explained that different. Different constructs in my mind. Don't don't ask me about why my brain treats it differently, but it just does. But yeah, we went up there and and then I met you guys out by Trump Tower. I remember. Yeah. Down by the river. The lock for the Apple store is that, you know, I love I love a city with a with a river running through it. That's that's one of my favorite things. You know, Austin's got a great, great river walk. Chicago's got a great river walk. And, you know, it's a toned down New York City, which I love, because New York can be too much sometimes way too much so. And I don't mind the cold. So that definitely helps with the with the lake effect. You know, I always loved me some Lake Michigan. Chicago is pretty good, but I was pretty great. You're more like a European. You got like a European heart. You had that time in Prague. Yeah. There's not a lot of cities like Chicago in in in Europe, that's for sure. You know, like the closest one I can think to. That's as much of a metropolis as Chicago is. London. Mhm. And that's kind of it. All the other European countries don't really have skyscrapers. Really. Yeah. I have any you know for the most part, you know, they got taller apartment buildings and whatnot, you know, the old Soviet blocks. But yeah, there's not a whole lot like it, you know, anywhere else in the world besides America. So how'd you like? How'd you like? So this guy went to high school in. In Prague. How'd you like that? Was that experience for you? Great experience in my life. Uh, I went to international school, got to meet some entitled people and some not so entitled people. And for the most part, they were pretty great. They're, you know, uh, really good friends of mine. For the longest time. It was just interesting to be going to high school in a different country than you had been living in, you know, for your entire life. And, you know, even though I didn't speak the language, you know, I learned a little bit of it more, you know, less than I should have. But, you know, greatest experience of my life, you know, getting to do crazy things like traveling to Istanbul for a soccer tournament a couple of months after I'd gotten there, which was just, you know, absolutely insane. You know, asked him. I was like, oh, you know, you need a goalkeeper. I was like, Raise my hand. And they're like, Oh, well, you can you can go to the tournament with us. And I go, Okay, yeah, where's the tournament? I'm thinking travel soccer like an hour away. Mhm. No we're going to Istanbul and I was like my mouth just dropped on one. I'm like, what? And then every, every year we had a W W W and all that means is that it's a week without walls. So every year you basically got a choice. The school would give you a list of options and basically for a trip you want to do. And I go, Who's paying for this? And then I was like, Oh, yeah, that's right, the U.S. taxpayer. So every kid that went to this school got the opportunity to do Week Without Walls. And the first year I did it, we went to Croatia to learn scuba diving. I just just the most wild things that like my American middle school brain, you know, just couldn't understand, you know, up until that point, it was, you know I was in public school in Indiana. So it was just, you know, absolutely insane to me that you would be taking a trip to another country for something to do a school. It's hard to fathom. Even now. I just look back at I'm like, man, I that's going to be the craziest time of my life, you know Yeah. And you're a degenerate, so. Yeah, yeah, well, things happen, and I just wish so badly that I could go back to it. That's probably the only reason I work, is just so I can make enough money to one day be able to go and do stuff like that again, you know? All right, so what's like future will? How old and what do you what do you envision for yourself? I mean, you know, at some point, like most people in the TSA, I would like to leave, you know, bigger stepping stone. That's not to say that there are not good opportunities in in management or being an upper level, you know, lead supervisor, manager. That's not to say those aren't good opportunities. I just I don't think that's what I see myself doing. You know, I'd like to go into the Foreign Service, I'd like to get back to working at embassies, you know, doing a lot of traveling, not putting down roots anywhere, but, you know, getting to go to a bunch of different places. That's that's that's how I see that's how I see this going. So so you see you're going top of the list. Where are you going? Top of the list? Because I haven't been to Asia, probably somewhere in Asia. You said Vietnam earlier. I did say Vietnam. Vietnam is is is fascinating. I think the. Why is it fascinating to you? Because obviously the cuisine is amazing. We all know that. But the idea that, you know what, 50 years ago we were in their country fighting them, fighting the insurgency, if you can call it that. Uh, and now for the most part, like, they're completely neutral. If anything, they like Americans, you know, from what I've seen, right? Which is crazy, because most of us would not be able to forget that, you know, if another country came to came to us, was fighting us 50 years down the line, we'd still be you know we would not be that that happy. Right. But they're very, you know, relatively neutral country. They've got some beautiful, beautiful landscapes. One of the largest caves in the world, which is. Is something I definitely would like to see the inside of at some point. Do you see is it just like is it an underwater cave or is it like a normal. No, it's it's not an underwater cave. I mean, I'm sure some parts of it are underwater. I would imagine most of it's probably still unexplored. But, you know, I just literally saw a picture one day and it was it was like something out of Jurassic Park, just a monstrous mouth of this cave that just dwarfed this small little tent on the ground. And I was like, okay, I need to be there. This sounds sick. I need to get there at some point. And they do expeditions and stuff. So. But yeah, because I'm have really no firsthand experience of what Asia is like and I've already kind of seen Europe. You know, I haven't seen a lot of America, but we'll get to that. I'm still here, so. Yeah, but seeing Asia is top of the list. Asia, Africa. Kenya, Ghana. I would definitely have to be posted there at some point, otherwise I'd be upset, you know? Yeah, I mean, that sounds pretty fun. I recommend India. Big proponent of India. I know you really love India. Go to Delhi, go to Bangalore, go to Jaipur. I mean, go to go to Poona. You know, it's Dope City because actually Poona is actually really there's a lot of cool places in India. It seems like it would be a great place. You know, I've seen a lot of YouTube videos on motorcycle tracks there. Uh huh. They always look cool. Yeah. So that's one of my favorite things about Asia is there's so many motorcycles and mopeds where you can just, you know, they have Uber is called like Rapido and you can just Uber a motorbike and you're on the back of this, like, teenager's motorbike and it takes you over. Yes. Very safe. I love that idea. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I feel like in Chicago, right. Like driving a motorcycle with all these big cars is really hard and really dangerous. But when you're surrounded by a sea of bikes, like, I feel like the the danger level has decreased and the danger of getting hit by a squatted F-150 is about 100% lower. So, you know, you're not gonna be seen any of those in India. Yeah. And they don't really have pickup trucks like we do out here while they don't have F-150s. That's where we're with our ridiculous trucks now are ridiculous. But where okay, where in America are you trying to go? Where in America? I haven't seen much of the states, I'll be honest. I mean, most likely it's probably got to be Nevada. I'm also a big storm guy. I love a good fucking storm. You know what I mean? Like, are you a storm chaser? No, I'm not a storm chaser. Skydiver here. Storm chasers, those are. Yeah, it's a terrible description of my life. No, I just love a good storm. Some nice dark storm clouds, you know? And it seems like Wyoming has, you know, an absolute metric ton of, like, crazy ass storms, you know, like Tornado Alley. They they got some pretty nasty storms out there. I just feel like it'd be a cool, cool environment to be in. And, you know, they got, you know, plenty of national parks and cool landscapes. Yeah, I think it just necessitates a road trip is what it necessitates. You know, I wouldn't fly out to any of these places individually. I would just, like, have a big block of time, just drive all around, you know, could see everything. Because I've never been west of Wisconsin, so. Oh, you never been like California anywhere? Nope. What's ever been Oregon? Literally never. West of Wisconsin. I've been to. I've been to Florida, been to Georgia, been to South Carolina. But yeah, north and west Wisconsin. How weird is Florida? I'm about as East Coast liberal as I get, so, you know. Yeah. How weird is Florida? Yeah, I don't have great memories of it, to be honest, because at least where my grandparents lived, it was a it was, you know, ambulance chaser heaven. You know, it was all like people above, you know, at the age of 80, for the most part, large majority. But, you know, it was good. I did a little bit of snorkeling and I don't have a lot of memories of it, but it was pretty good time. Florida's weird now that I don't think I would want to go back. Florida just has seems like it's always been weird. I mean, like, it's really I mean, yes, there are other states that are cesspools, but it seems like Florida's the biggest cesspool of all right now. Yeah, Florida's probably number one cesspool in the United States. I mean, the amount of Florida man stories alone should should tell you all you need to know, you know. And then they've got a high heel wearing governor who wants to pretend like he's six foot three. That's great. That's all he wears. Like platforms or some he wears platform boots. Oh, really? It's so obvious. I can't believe you haven't seen a diagram yet where Ron DeSantis wears, like, a really large platform. I'm going to look up Ron DeSantis and I'm going to look up platform heels. And the the first thing will be a picture of how he's wearing platform shoes. That guy's. Something. Yeah. I don't know why he's doing it. You know, maybe it's just because he really only started wearing them once he was running for president. Maybe because, like, Trump is really tall. He thinks he needs to be taller. Maybe because Trump is, like, tall. He's like, what, six to oh. But they look like kind of like cowboy boots. But they're not. Well, they actually change his height, and he's wearing them everywhere. Everywhere. Let's do not look comfortable. No, they do not. Well, there was a Republican debate recently, so we don't I mean, I'm not gonna chart politics here, but May 20, 24 is coming up. Fuck, yeah, it's too close. Sleepy Joe, though, that really makes you realize how much time has passed. Because it did seem like, like six months ago that Trump was still president. It's pretty crazy. I know. It feels like he was just president. Yeah. Like, my my concept of. Of time is. Is completely off. I just, like, I just can't believe how fast we went through Trump and then how fast we went through Biden like we were just running through them. But yeah, Biden's old. That's my only thing. I'm like, This dude's so fucking old. Like, there needs to be a cap on. On how old you can be. I just a lot of these people are putting policies into effect which will likely not affect them because they will be dead. You know, based on the average life expectancy of an American, you know, they won't even be alive. Yeah, Einstein. Great example. Yeah. She just plays on his on his way out is mentally so it's checked out. He's definitely checked out. Um, one thing I will say, though, is that at least when I'm doing ID checks and whatnot is that it's very hard to guess people's actual ages. You know, a lot of people I will, you know, will come through and they go, oh, this person's 60 to 63. And then you look at their in their 45, there shouldn't be that big of a gap between what you think they are and what they actually are. But you get a lot of people who, whether it's through smoking or just general bad health, look so much older than they actually are. Mhm. You know, I don't know if that says a lot about, you know, the American diet or what, but it's, that's just one thing that I've noticed almost more than anything else, you know, in terms of seeing thousands and thousands of people come through every day and being able to, you know, see what year they were born I always tell my mom and dad, I'm like, trust me, you guys are doing pretty well for your age. You are, you know, grandparents. I'm like, you guys. Yeah, you guys are doing fairly well compared to other people, you know? Yeah. Let's hope we have good genetics and, um, can curtail our unhealthier habits. Yeah. Goes out to everyone else who might be in the same boat. I don't know, but. Yeah, fuck that. I mean, I don't know. I feel like you shouldn't be scared of aging, right? You got to approach it positively because you can't do anything about it. So you might as well just accept it and try to live your life gracefully. I don't want to be like that. Old dude was like a curmudgeon and hates the world. You know? That doesn't look like a fun life. No, they're miserable. And so they have to make other people miserable. You know, I meet TSOs all the time that, you know, they just they either have been working too long and just don't like people or they're miserable. And, you know, a lot of people are very immature. And if they're miserable, they're going to make other people miserable. They're going to you know, they're going to go down with the ship with them. Right. They're going to take them down with them. And, you know, I've always just been understanding that the nicer you are, the easier it is for you, for you to do your job. You know, as long as you just be a decent human, you, you will make a good TSO, you know? Also, you know, knowing the procedures helps too. But yeah, you know, compliance, you get a lot more from talking to a person one on one than yelling at them, take a hoodie off that tik tok went way too viral because it was way too true. That's just about every TSA checkpoint I've ever been through. I never do that, you know, because the people aren't listening anyways. It's going in one ear, out the other. But you know, yeah, other people just, you know, they get upset, right? When people don't do what they ask, but they don't realize that it's really their own fault that they're not listening in the first place, you know, at least, you know, to the TSOs. So. So I had Ben on, on this podcast like a few months ago now. And that was his thing too, is like people are just going to people and just be nice. He's like, be nice, have fun, but be nice. Makes everyone's life easier. Um, yeah. I definitely think that's a good thing that just carry. Your fucking life is just be nice. It's a real good, easy skill to have is just to be decent to other people. I mean, I can literally count on one hand the number of people that have gotten angry with me or tried to fight with me on one hand, maybe four times ever. And those are people that no matter what you said, we're going to do that anyways. And that's just people that are having a bad day. And you you just chalk it up to that, you know, people that, you know, go and insult TSOs or TSOs that insult passengers, you know, that's just they're just having a bad day You chalk it up to that. It's never personal because they don't know you. So the fact that people take it personal is just crazy to me. They don't know you. You know, this isn't a deep cut. They don't know about your life. The main character syndrome. It is that it's like, you know, you know, if they say fuck you, fuck you, fuck that. It's like they're just mad in general. They're not necessarily mad at you. They're just a person they can take it out on. That's all it is. You know, you get people all the time that, you know, they don't understand the rules. And, you know, they'll say, oh, this. Well, they did this at a different airport and blah, blah. But yeah, they're going to be angry no matter what. And they didn't understand the rules. And so they're going to take it out on you. That's not to say that there's, you know, some not logical procedures or things that shouldn't happen. You know, it's always hard for for people to understand when, like, you know, one airport didn't take their pepper spray away. Sometimes it's just they didn't catch it. But we did. And it's like, well, I got through the other airport. This it's like, okay, well, a murderer got away with one murder, so the second murder should be on the house. It's like, you know, doesn't make any sense, right? But, you know, we have a lot of people who are like, one thing I noticed in terms of, you know, finding, you know, certain items, you tend to find a lot more pepper spray in the summer. Right. But my brother came home and he had this little Gerber knife. Right. You know, maybe about six inches. Now, that's a little bit too much, five inches stainless steel. And he's like, oh, it was on sale at Home Depot. Mm. Got it for 15 bucks or whatever. Well, the next couple days I'd found probably ten or 11 of those knives and I'd never seen it before that day. And so I was just like, so you almost know for a fact that all these same people went to Home Depot and bought the exact same knife on sale and then just happened to forget that it was in their bag. It's crazy. Yeah, cause, you know, it's especially easy when you had never seen the knife before. And it's a very specific knife. You rarely find the same knife twice, you know, because there's so many different ones out there. And it was just so funny to see that exact same night pop up ten times in the few days following this Home Depot sale. You know, it was crazy. Well, I think, you know, I want to thank you for, uh, enlightening us about the TSA and kind of sharing like the positives, some of the negatives of working in government. Also highlighting some important facts about TSA. I did not know, you know, I came in here kind of a little cynical, gave you a tough time. But, you know, I'm like, I see I definitely see the value in the merit. And, uh, thank you for that. Before we wrap this up, is there anything you want to say to the listeners? Yes. In case this person, this man is listening, you know, I just want to tell him that what I saw you do is the craziest thing I've probably ever seen. We had a guy come through the checkpoint. He was on the international side. I believe he's going to Ghana, Akra and his bag, it's called for bag check, a little duffel bag. They pull the duffel bag out. Say, sir, you know, we have to do a quick search. You have anything sharp or fragile in here? He doesn't answer. He just kind of nods. Had to start doing the search. And from what I saw on the screen, it looked like. Like like an olive oil bottle, you know, is clearly glass. Right. And at least with the new machines, we can tell how much is in there, whereas before you just call it no matter what and figure it out. Now you can see kind of how much is in there, completely full. So they pull the bottle out. It is, in fact, olive oil. Mm hmm. You know, like the fancy glass bottle version. And usually with stuff like that, you would just tell them, okay, they always have two options, right? They can either, a, voluntarily abandon the property. We don't say take away because we're not taking away anything. They're voluntarily abandoning it. Or they can go out. Check the bag. Right. Go back upstairs. Check the bag with the airline. You always have that option. You can always go back out. Most people don't because they don't have the time and. So you just tell him the options. And the guy asks, Can I just go back outside? And he's like, Yeah, of course. Yeah. So, you know, you walk their stuff back out to the other side, pass the gate, and you'll leave him, you know, right where people are divesting all their items, you know, putting stuff in bins. And I was at the body scanner, so I was about ten feet away. Man takes the bottle of olive oil, takes the cap off, and then proceeds to chug the entire bottle of olive oil just down down the gullet. Really. Like like he was, you know, at a beer drinking contest. He down the whole thing. His wife was on the other side watching. Pretty much everybody on the checkpoint was just like doubled over, you know, laughing, slash crying, you know, at what we just saw. And the wife is completely unfazed by everything, as if this was like a completely normal occurrence. Guy comes through, he has to go through screening again. And, you know, his belly definitely looked a little bit bigger. And so he had to get through, get patted down right on the stomach. I don't know if that happened before because I wasn't there, but guy came through a completely straight face. He must have noticed us laughing and it didn't faze him at all. And I imagine that he was just having liquid shit for the next four days because there's no way that that did not affect him. He drank. Oh, olive oil. Olive oil. I know people do that for cleanses and stuff. Now that's insane. That's. He drank a whole bottle. A whole fucking bottle like this big. It's like a liter if you're for the people that can't see. So three quarters, half liter, three quarters of liter, anything more than a teaspoon is crazy. Well, I don't think he'll ever listen to my podcast. Um, but if you get a a message from somebody random about olive oil, maybe he did. So listen for liquid shit part two and and we got you covered so I guess with that lovely liquid shits wrap everything up. Um, thank you for tuning in. And if you know anyone, that's pretty cool. Wants to share a story and wants to be on the podcast, let me know and we'll set it up. Uh, thanks again. Uh, we'll see you next week. Peace. Peace.