So I'm at Terminal 1 of London Heathrow on my way to Frankfurt. The self check-in machines are an annoying addition to the already hectic airport procedure. The last thing I, being the customer, want to have to do is to enter the data myself and since the person at the desk still has to check that the details match on my documents and thats its actually me traveling on those documents, he might as well do the data entry stuff for me. Anyway, past that at the security check is what's worth a share.
In my carry-on backpack I have my laptop and a few snacks. In its pocket are the chargers for my phone, iPod, laptop, camera and extra batteries. Their wires are always intertwined in a uniquely chaotic manner. There are certain things that, no matter how hard you try, cannot be packed in a sophisticated way. As I take off my jacket and my belt and put my luggage through the x-ray scanning machine, the lady watching the connected computer screens gives it a long stare and calls someone who looks like a superior of hers from among those security personnel who are roaming about. This person attends to the screen and gives me a deep suspicious look. Now, the flight I am taking is LH 911 and although I am not an Osama look-a-like, but I tend to not shave my beard regularly and have a heavy mustache that I would like to think of as fairly cool. This time its been about two weeks since I last trimmed my beard. So this supervisor sort of person asks me if the bag is mine and after an affirmative from me tells me in an authoritative tone that she's going to pass it through the machine again. And suddenly there are three or four security personnel staring at the screen, trying to figure something out. They are still not satisfied and one of them brings the bag to me and wears the sort of gloves that they use at a crime scene to gather evidence. She says shes going to open my bag and I respond 'sure'. She has some handheld scanning device and she scans every single element in my bag and puts all the chargers and electronic stuff in a tray and informs me that she'll pass them from the machine again. By this time, some people at different stages of the security procedure have started staring at the me; the weird looking person traveling on Lufthansa flight LH 911 who is being inspected. I'm pretty okay with everything as I know there is nothing in there that's worth suspicion. The lady is still not satisfied with something showing up on the screen. She separates each of the wires to see what the hell is showing up on the scanner. She opens the camera cover and takes it out. At the top it says GPS. Well, that's basically it, she shows it to her colleagues and says a smiling thank you and I am off to the lounge.