This post was written on January 19, 2009

Two years ago I borrowed a travel bag from my mother. It’s perfect since it matches all airline hand luggage size restrictions but is still big enough to fit a whole week of clothes, my computer, books and all kinds of shit with its many pockets.

Being the perfect travel bag, it’s been my hand luggage on all my trips and I travel quite frequently. My mum’s been wanting it back though and after two years of nagging I decided to return it, emptied all the little pockets, then turned it upside down and guess what fell out?

A f*cking knife!

I’d been looking for that little bastard ever since I bought it from the Uyghur population of Western China. It’s sharp as hell and has Islamic inscriptions on it, pretty suspicious, huh? The first thing that went through my head was, “I don’t even want to know what would have happened to me had they found it!” and then, “How the HELL could they not find it?” I’ve carried that bag through security at major airports in New York, London, Paris, Beijing, Shanghai, Berlin and god knows where and no one has detected it!

I told some friends about it, turns out it’s pretty common and they told me similar stories. Here’s a little listing of obviously forbidden stuff that have passed through airport security unnoticed and even more ridiculous—some absolutely harmless things that were confiscated.

Allowed:

COKE

Abi, London

Last year, I went to Stockholm with some friends for a short weekend of parties.

Since I didn’t know anyone over there who could hook me up I brought some coke in my bra. I was a bit nervous when I passed through security, but I hadn’t told my friends who were laughing and messing about, so I went along with it and got through without any suspicions.

SYRINGES

Tobias, Stockholm

I have diabetes type 1 so I need to bring insulin, syringes and cannulas in my hand luggage whenever I fly. I used to always bring a medical certificate in case there’d be trouble passing through security but they never ask to see it.

I could basically bring anything and claim it was insulin and they’d just let me pass. Shit, I even have cannulas and syringes! I could kill an airhostess in a minute. Would they be as trusting if I didn’t look so darn Swedish? I think not.

PEPPER SPRAY

Kelly, San Francisco

I always bring pepper spray in my handbag and since I travel a lot I know I have to put it in my check-in luggage before I fly.

But there was this one time when I was on the verge of missing my flight due to heavy New York traffic and was too stressed out to remember. Halfway to LA I opened my bag to get something and saw the pepper spray and kinda froze.

Shit, they let me on an American Airlines domestic flight with pepper spray, what the fuck!

ECSTASY

Ola, Stockholm

I got a small bag of ecstacy through airport security in Barcelona when I was flying back to Stockholm after the Sónar festival.

I won’t tell you how I got it through though, that would just end up in yet another “take off your shoes” security procedure that would further steal millions of people’s time in somber wall-to-wall carpeted corridors.

I was confident of my hiding spot and not particularly nervous.

SPRAY-CAN

Mo, Copenhagen

I was flying from Barcelona to Copenhagen and when I got home I realised I had a spray-can in my hand luggage. I had totally forgotten about it.

Not only is it fluid and metal, it’s flammable! No way are you allowed to bring that on-board.

Banned!:

SPOON

Mo, Copenhagen

This was on the same flight as above (Barcelona to Copenhagen).

I had bought a porcelain Repose de Cuillere as a gift for my mom and for no other reason than it looking suspicious they confiscated it!

Me being very late as usual there was no time to argue, but how fucked up is it that I can bring a spray-can but not a frikkin’ porcelain spoon that would just brake if I tried to hit anyone with it?

SKATEBOARD

Jonnie, London

I was flying from London to Stockholm and figured I’d bring my board since there are some good skate spots over there.

When I passed security they asked me what that was sticking out of my bag and I showed them the board. They got hostile and said, “You can’t bring that!” I asked why but all they said was that skateboards weren’t allowed.

No explanation, nothing! People can bring fucking golf equipment but not a skateboard?! They took it away and said they’d store it for me for five quid a day.

Since I was going for over two weeks, there was no way I could afford getting it back and I couldn’t convince anyone to go out to Stansted and get it, I had to leave it behind. It was such a good board, and my friend Paddy had painted the back of it—I loved that skateboard!

WATER-PISTOL

Rikard, Stockholm

A couple of years ago, my family and I were flying home from our summerhouse in France and had to change flights at London Stansted. It was when people were still scared of flying with 9/11 being pretty recent and that whole coke bottle bomb thing had just happened.

There were armed policemen all over the place, which wasn’t exactly comforting. After two hours of waiting we finally got to pass through security, my little brother was cranky and whining. When our bags went through some alarm went off and loads of armed guards gathered. They opened my mum’s bag and took out my brother’s water gun.

They started arguing with her for bringing something similar to a weapon and made sure to let her know how inappropriate it was by confiscating it while my poor little brother stood there crying.

MILENE LARSSON