I feel the need to tell this story in my own words. As many of you already know, Sadie and I had an incident with the TSA here in Tyler on Tuesday when we returned from our labor day vacation. We had flown in and out of Tyler, which we don't normally do. We normally just fly out of Dallas as it is significantly cheaper. This time, however, we used air miles for the tickets and it was the same amount of miles whether we flew out of Tyler or Dallas so we figured we might as well. On the way out they were somewhat rude, and made us empty Sadie's drink-not something I have had to do at any other airport (they typically will run a test strip over the liquid to make sure it is safe). I protested and said asked, "Can't you just do the test to it?" The man rudely said, "We don't do that here." Ok, fine, whatever. We get through security and have an uneventful trip to California.
We had a great time at Catalina but were both exhausted to say the least. Sadie did not sleep on the flight from SNA to DFW but fell asleep on the short 15 minute flight from DFW to TYR. She was seriously SOUND asleep, and did not want to wake up. I finally managed to get her to wake up enough to walk off the plane up the jetway. We are holding hands and walk through the gate area. When we got to the hallway to get past the security check point she decided she just did not want to walk anymore and stopped and sat down. For those of you that have traveled through Tyler, you know it is a very short hallway. I initially said it might be 20 feet but feel like that is an exaggeration. I feel like it is probably closer to 10 feet. Anyways, she is IN the hallway with me. I see my husband through the glass so decide the best thing for me to do is open the door just enough to get rid of the bags I was carrying so that I could then pick Sadie up since she did not want to walk. I proceed to open it but not step out. I yelled to Adam that Sadie was having a hard time and could he come grab the bags. If I had stepped out and closed the door behind me I could understand what happens next, but that is not the case. I turned back around, with the clear door still open slightly, and start to go grab Sadie. All of a sudden I have this TSA agent come out of nowhere and get right in my face and start yelling at me that if I take another step I would be breeching security. I told him I needed to grab my two year old. He offered NO solution on how I was going to get her. He just kept yelling that I was not to move and that if I did it would be a security breech and "thank you for understanding." No, sir, I don't understand why I can't get my child when I NEVER EXITED THE SECURE AREA!
Sadie just sat there crying and screaming for me, getting more upset by the second. At this point the rest of the passengers had de-planed and a women saw our distress and offered to bring Sadie to me. I said, "Yes, please." Had she not offered I am still not sure how the agent expected me to get her, as she was not interested in walking. We grabbed our checked bags and got out of there as fast as we could and I immediately started posting about it on Facebook. He messed with the wrong mom! The moment I got home I started emailing every local and national news station because I wanted people to hear about the ridiculous actions of this agent. The next morning I had offers from the local NBC and CBS stations asking if I would go on camera. I said, absolutely. I wanted everyone to hear how awful the experience was! I knew that there would be a handful of rude comments by strangers once the story was posted on the internet, but I was willing to accept that.
Naturally today, I read some hurtful comments and that is what made me decide to post this blog and sort of "answer" those comments. I had a couple people act like I "left" Sadie. I did not LEAVE her at all. As I said before, she was in the hallway with me and we had been holding hands. I could not hold the bags AND her so I had to set the bags down somewhere so that I would be able to pick her up. In hindsight I should have set the bags down right where she was crying and made the JERK TSA agent go back and carry them out for me. Others commented on that I should have had a stroller-I am not an idiot. I have traveled with Sadie before and have always taken a stroller, but did not see a reason to this trip as it is such a small space between where we would need to walk. It seemed like it would be more trouble than it would be worth.
The comments were definetly more hurtful than I thought they would be. They attacked my parenting and that is not ok with me. I know I am an amazing mom that will do anything for my child. I really shouldn't even give those comments the time of day to read them, but felt like I should set the record straight. NONE of this would have even happened if that agent would have just offered to escort me to Sadie or even offered to let me go back through the security screening process if he truly felt like I had stepped out too far of the secure area. Neither of those things were offered to me. My goal in all this is that he gets investigated and in trouble. HE is the reason I was "separated" from Sadie and deserves to be reprimanded.
One final note: because of his actions, I will not be flying out of Tyler again. If he is representative of how TSA agents are there, I don't want any part in that. DFW has always been very polite and accommodating when I fly out of there, so to the agents there, thank you, you will continue to get our business.
