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“Things I’ve Done With 50 Grand In My Pants” – Airport Encounter

*Disclaimer: Not every travel adventure I’ve had involved having large amounts of cash in my pants.  But a pretty decent number of them did find me with several “10-straps.”  Just so you know though, it was all legal…  Seriously, it was!*

Ok, now I have to kick-start my other blog.  “Things I’ve Done With 50 Grand In My Pants” is going to be devoted to travel stories with an adventurous, humorous, or unique theme to them.  It will be fun to relive some of my own, and I hope to get some from other people up here too.  To inspire, that is my goal.

Due to the title of this particular blog, I’m going to consistently sprinkle in actual stories of me doing something with a large amount of cash in my pants.  So I’ll start with this one:  New York State has a lot of airports.  Big ones, small ones, medium sized ones.  Well, one winter day in 2009 I found myself in an airport of the medium sized variety.  Now, this wasn’t any ordinary visit.  I was heading out to the midwest to undertake several new adventures.  I had no idea what lay in store for me.  In fact, I was on the very cusp of a vast series of trips that would see me explore large swaths of the US.

At this time I had around $40,000 on me (give or take a couple thousand).  I admit, I was a rookie at transporting large amounts of cash.  So incognito wasn’t necessarily a word you would use to describe me.  My pants just weren’t adequate to carry such a large amount of duckets, and to simultaneously keep it on the down-low.  Thus began my first of many exciting encounters with airport security.

As I approached the baggage screeners I confess that I felt a wee-little twinge of nervousness in the center of my chest.  How was this going to go down?  It’s amazing how when you’re trying to hide something, it seems like absolutely everyone is on to you…  Even the cute little Grandma-looking lady behind me was casting a wary glance my way. Or at least at that that moment I was convinced she was.  “Sir!”  My gaze was torn away from Grandma, as she was debating whether the ladybug pin on her blouse would set off the alarms and make the airport angry.  I whipped my head around and saw a TSA official waiting for me on the other side of the metal detector.  “You can step on through, and have your ticket ready.”  Alright, it’s normal to hear that.  I got in position and mentally double-checked myself for any metallic items that still might be on me.  “Hold on a minute.  Sir, what’s in your pockets?” “I don’t wanna say….,” I replied.

Within a minute I was whisked away to a tiny little room with a box of very scary looking latex gloves on a counter top.  I didn’t want to imagine what they were for.  Immediately I began to be grilled with a thousand questions.  I can happily say though that over the next 30 minutes I transformed a room of very suspicious and mildly intimidating TSA agents into…well, fans.  Although I’m sure an FBI file was opened on me that day (if not earlier), we were all in agreement that I was doing nothing illegal.  Just so you know, you can carry large amounts of cash on you within the US, especially if you have a good reason why.  Leaving the country though?  Don’t try it!

With pats on the back on good luck wishes I eventually left my fan club behind (money safely intact) and enjoyed my free bag of pretzels as I soared away to a large midwestern city.  After this particular trip I’d never look at airports the same way again.  10-straps, tiny airport rooms, and latex gloves = adventure?!  I never would have thought so (well, except for the gloves…).

Comments (1)

 

  1. Elana says:

    Hey Dave,

    I love this story!! It never gets old. Too fun :) Can’t wait to read more entries.

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