On Saturday I had an interesting encounter with a TSA agent at the Milwaukee airport. I was returning home from a two week long journey that took me to St. Louis for a physics conference and then Milwaukee where I visited with family, met with some undergrads at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, and give a colloquium at the UW. At the conference I had acquired a t-shirt which had ‘physicist’ across the front. I decided to wear this t-shirt as I traveled home.<\/p>\n
At the Milwaukee airport after you have your check luggage tagged by a gate agent, you have to hand your luggage to a TSA agent who runs it though an x-ray machine before it is loaded onto the plane. As I was handing my bag to a TSA agent, he asked, “What am I thinking?”.<\/p>\n
I had no idea what to say. I mean does he think I am a terrorist? Does he think I have something illegal in my bag? I don’t know. So, I say to him, “I don’t know.”<\/p>\n
His response was rather alarming. He said, “Your shirt says your a psychic.” I looked down at my shirt, looked up rather puzzled and then, shyly said, “It says physicist.”<\/p>\n
He looked at me, turned his back and walked away without another word.<\/p>\n
I couldn’t help feeling a little insulted and very worried.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday I had an interesting encounter with a TSA agent at the Milwaukee airport. I was returning home from a two week long journey that took me to St. Louis for a physics conference and then Milwaukee where I visited with family, met with some undergrads at Carthage College in Kenosha, WI, and give … <\/p>\n