Skip to main content

TIFU deadlifting at the airport and almost getting my boyfriend detained by TSA

I've been a powerlifter for a few years now. Whenever I go traveling for significant periods of time, I generally take some lifting equipment with me, including squat shoes, lifting belt, gym chalk, and protein powder. I should add that I don't really look like a powerlifter. I have no visible muscle and weigh like 95 pounds at 5'3''.

So anyways my boyfriend and I are going through airport security, and he grabs me really rough and suddenly to get me out of the way of someone's swinging suitcase. I see TSA look at us a little more closely but don't think anything of it.

Then we get stopped because our bags contain chalk and protein powder, so they needed to go through our bags. Note I'm wearing a crop top, and I guess it came up a bit while my arms were raised while going through security. There's a couple large bruises above my abdomen where I brace against my lifting belt while deadlifting.

So the same TSA agent asks me to come with her, and once we're far enough away from everyone else, she asks me if I'm safe, if I'm being held against my will, and if there's someone she could call for me. I'm really confused and kind of nervous, but tell her nothing is wrong. She noted how my boyfriend had grabbed me earlier. I told her he was moving me out of the way of someone else's suitcase.

Then she mentions the bruise above my stomach. And I say "Oh, no worries. That's just belt marks."

She looks even more alarmed at that, and I think she called for backup. I hang out with so many gym rats that I forget normal people don't associate "belt" with lifting. The combination of random powders in my suitcase, plus the bruises, plus the grabbing had set off this woman's alarms, and I think she thought I was some kind of trafficking victim. I quickly realize my mistake, and try to explain that I'm a powerlifter, and the belt mark was from a lifting belt.

I don't think they quite bought this explanation at first, and I see a few more security agents approaching us, as well as my boyfriend. I'm a little panicked because I don't want to cause a scene or seem more suspicious when we had never actually done anything wrong. TSA lady tells me if I need help, just let her know and she would keep us separated. So my brilliant idea was to get into a deadlift position and deadlift my ~5 pound backpack. I don't really know what I was thinking, but thankfully at this point, TSA had finished testing the protein powder and chalk and had verified that it was not cocaine, so they let us go.

I told my boyfriend about this, and we're laughing about it now, but I think next time, we're not going to bring protein powder or chalk with us to the airport.

TL;DR: I deadlifted my backpack in the middle of airport security trying to prove I wasn't being abused or trafficked

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

TIFU - Don’t do what I did

On Sunday morning Aug. 24th, I awoke to discover a large blind spot in my right eye, which turned out to be what is called wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). It has resulted in a very significant, permanent loss of vision in that eye. Although I maintain good peripheral vision, whatever I focus on at best is very blurry, and mostly disappears. I can barely make out the large E at the top of the eye chart. If this happens to my left eye I’ll be unable to read or drive. It turns out that I missed the opportunity that I had to prevent this from becoming a serious problem because I failed to report what appeared to be minor changes in my vision. In the weeks prior to August I had noticed that what I knew to be straight lines appeared to my right eye to have a little waviness. I also noticed that the color of my front lawn, which I could see through the window from my recliner,  was subdued, looked almost gray, in my right eye. So I scheduled an eye exam, which revealed the p...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by getting suspended for 2 days by my front office in school.

I (13M) am an African American student at Jeannette junior high who had got suspended for 2 days here. I was in math class minding my business until my teacher had told me to go to the main office, which posed no problem to me. As i went down there, the people of the front office had stopped me and made me get a new ID (yes, we have id's.) so i had asked them if i could maybe do a different alternative and call my mother to let her bring the Id here, even then, the Id isn't that important. So, although i was talking to them in a calm manner and not showing any signs of rebellion, they had threatened to call the police on me without thinking twice before calling my parents. This is where i started getting angry, and even then now the black peers agree that could have been a racially motivated action. They then told me to sit in the office conference room because of that, leading into more anger. They had then called my mother who had came over to the school didn't even let ...
Post a Comment
Read more

TIFU by putting my already skinny jeans in the dryer on high heat.

TL;DR: Was stupid and didn't realize I put my clothes on extra high heat in the dryer. Had to rock skintight skinny jeans all day with tighty whities (only clean pair I had since I procrastinate doing laundry like crazy). I guess the constant wedgies and squishing are punishment for my stupidity. Honestly don’t know who else to blame but myself for this. I’m a scatterbrained guy so I literally put the highest setting on a load with most of my clothes, and my skinny jeans that I was planning to wear today. You can probably already see where this is going, but somehow I didn’t. For context, these jeans were already pushing the limits of what could reasonably be called wearable. They fit, technically, but only in the sense that I could get them on with enough determination and a bit of strategic breathing. Sitting down in them was more of a commitment than a casual action. Still, they looked good, and I had convinced myself that discomfort was just part of the aesthetic. So this m...
Post a Comment
Read more