Do not question airport security, especially in the 3rd world.
Especially enjoyed the part about the lighters.
From the British newspaper, The Daily Telegraph
A hair slide ruined my holiday
When Maria McErlane ignored an airport security guard she made a big mistake. Next thing she knew she was behind bars
It sounded easy enough. All I had to do was fly to Tobago for a week’s holiday. But within 36 hours of leaving Gatwick, my trip to the Caribbean had taken me to places I didn’t want to be – including jail – and introduced me to characters I would really rather not have met.
Hair-raising: Maria McErlane's slide upset staff at Grenada airport
Perhaps my first mistake was to book with a charter company. I'm not sure if British Airways would have been any different, but for whatever reason Monarch Airlines seemed unable to find a spare tyre when a fault was discovered after landing in Grenada. So began a 24-hour delay while someone in London struggled to find a replacement.
After 10 hours at Grenada airport, 387 passengers were sent to a hotel. Getting to bed at 2am and returning to the airport at 7am understandably caused considerable ill humour. Blearily passing through airport security, I was slightly taken aback to be told I would have to take out the hair slide I had been wearing since leaving London. Thinking the official was joking, I forced a thin laugh and wandered off into the departure lounge. This was my second mistake. Within moments, an irate woman had appeared with further admonishments about my hair wear. I told her that exhaustive security checks at Gatwick had failed to register anything dangerous about my hair slide but as she felt so alarmed, I would deposit it with the air stewardess on boarding to avoid any "hair rage" during the 20-minute flight to Tobago.
I should have known, of course, that attempts at humour are rarely appreciated by people in uniform. I sat back and opened my book. But before I could remove my marker, I was taken aside by two stern-looking men in khaki fatigues carrying guns. I was then told that if I didn't give up my hair slide I would be imprisoned. This was obviously the point that I should have put down my shovel and climbed out of the hole I was digging for myself. Hindsight - so useful.
Instead, I tried to reason that perhaps they were being a little over zealous and that it would be difficult to hijack a plane with a harmless hair accessory. Even when they started to wave their weapons around and ooze military amounts of testosterone, I foolishly dug on and pointed out a glaring security inconsistency whereby lighters were confiscated even though passengers could then go and buy another from the departure lounge shop.
They glared at me with unconcealed loathing before sloping off. Slightly shaken, I went to the gift shop and bought an "I love Grenada" hair slide, which I arranged in my tousled tresses in the ladies' loo. Mistake number three - and frankly they're not worth chronicling after this point - was to leave my old hair slide, that threat to security, on the basin.
Ten minutes later the police arrived and I was frogmarched to a cell. Apparently my old hair slide in the ladies had disappeared and while I suggested that maybe another passenger had picked it up, they accused me instead of passing it to an accomplice.
It was not a good idea to laugh at this point but, overcome with exhaustion, laugh I did. When they told me that all 387 passengers' hand luggage would now have to be searched I could only stare in disbelief. Events took a turn for the scary when a sadistic-looking policeman threatened me with violence. He called me a "white c***", a "filthy whore" and told me he would take me to prison and "mash" me up.
I began to feel very frightened. Sympathetic passengers aware of my plight came to check on my wellbeing, but all attempts to discuss what was happening were thwarted by the power-crazed policeman. Despite my mumblings about the Geneva Convention, I was ordered back in my cell.
A combination of fatigue and incredulity made the whole situation feel surreal. Sitting on the floor of a cell wrapped in a grubby airline blanket, the only thing I could think of was to take a picture of myself for posterity. This caused great consternation and the camera was snatched away amid further threats of violence. I smiled sweetly as I said, "But I was just taking a picture of myself on holiday . . ."
A Frenchman in shorts, Airtex shirt and towel jauntily wrapped around his neck appeared. Philippe Marrell was head of global security, or some such title, and had been called away from his Sunday tennis tournament to deal with the hair-slide hostage. In fairness, he was slightly more reasonable but he took great pains to point out that matters were by now out of his hands. I had breached national security "big time" and would have to be sent to prison.
All I could think to say was "Are you a good tennis player?"
We got chatting and he pointed out that as a woman in a culture where women are still seen as second-class citizens, my own somewhat macho stance had thrown everyone into a state of fury and confusion. "What would have happened if I had started to cry?" I asked him. "That would have been a very sensible option," he replied with a smile, "and I would still be two sets up."
Any thoughts that Monarch would in some way protect me from this lunacy - or even offer moral support - evaporated when the captain appeared to side with the Grenadian airport security by offloading me. The offending tyre had still not been replaced and now, it seemed to me, he was able to blame the subsequent delay (another four hours) on the attempts to retrieve my luggage from the hold.
With my ticket voided and stamped with the words "undesirable", I watched the plane and my holiday disappear into the blue. It was at this point that M Marrell informed me that the slide had been found (where I left it in the ladies' loo) but that security could not be seen to have lost face, especially to a lippy woman. Of course they didn't send me to prison. Instead a policewoman asked if I had ever used heroin (I haven't). Realising that my luggage had been out of my sight for some hours, I became worried that heroin might have been planted in it. My flight to Tobago saw me bathed in a sweat of paranoia, though thankfully on unpacking I found nothing untoward.
Have I learnt my lesson? Yes. However crazy the regulations seem, it's best to toe the line. Never argue with officials who are in a position to stop you travelling or who carry guns. A hair slide, no matter how long you have been wearing it, no matter how inoffensive, is not worth missing a holiday for.
