Friday, November 06, 2009

Nonsense

On Wednesday evening, I was boarding a plane at Bremen airport in Germany. Earlier in the day, I had purchased a plastic bottle of Diet Coke, had consumed half of it, and then closed it and put the bottle in my rucksack. Of course, I then forgot about it. When I put the same rucksack through the X-Ray machine at the airport, it showed up and I was asked to remove it from my bag. I asked if I could simply drink the contents rather than have it confiscated. I was told that, yes, I could, but in order to do so I would have to take it back outside the secure area, drink it, and then go through security again.

I am almost tempted to offer a prize for the most creative reason that anyone can imagine for such a rule. Do they think I am going to explode if I drink non-approved Diet Coke on the wrong side of the metal detector? Even if they do, in what way would my exploding outside the secure area make things better?

2 comments:

Rob Fisher said...

http://xkcd.com/651/

Rezwan said...

The Germans are basically a rule based society. They ain't gonna bend it even a bit, even though this complicates things.

Remember Hanna Schmitz (Kate Winslet), from The Reader (movie)? She was accused of letting 300 Jewish women die in a burning church because she did not open the door to let them escape the fire. She told the jury it was her responsibility as a SS guard to lock them in.

I am sure most Germans are not like that, but then again you will find some.

Blog Archive