My first summer in Spain, I lived and studied in Sevilla, but to get there, I had to connect through Madrid.
Now, if you’ve ever been on an international flight, you know what it’s like when they “wake you up” in the morning for breakfast — you’re not hungry because it’s really not breakfast time, and you’re usually irritable because you didn’t sleep well on the flight, nor have you had a shower in several hours.
I got off of my plane and weaved my way though the Madrid airport, which by the way, has poorly-designed directional signs. I had to go through a security checkpoint, since I was boarding another flight.
I put my luggage on the belt, and right after I walked through the scanner, a security officer with a stern look on his face pulled my carry-on bag off the belt and yelled “whose bag is this?!” in Spanish. I answered that it was mine, after being a little bit thrown-off by his tone, not to mention because it was my first morning in Spain and a native Spanish-speaker was raising his voice at me very fast. He pulled out my toiletry bag and looked very upset. He asked what was in it, but I didn’t respond because I was put on the spot and didn’t remember how to say “toiletries” in Spanish. He opened it up and pulled out my pair of children’s craft scissors. He started yelling again, something about how they were'n’t allowed. Obviously I didn’t know that they would be a problem with the Madrid airport, after they had been fine going through security in the U.S. I’m thankful that all he did was confiscate the scissors, but honestly, what harm could they have done? They barely cut paper.
I had to google a picture of the scissors that the Madrid airport security personnel took from me. I would’ve posted a picture of my pair, but they confiscated mine . . .
So thank you, Madrid airport security. You kept me from having my travel scissors with me and left me unprepared in the case of a fashion emergency (trimming any loose strings off of my clothes) all summer.