The line at Tampa International Airport's security zone was getting longer by the second, my flight to New York was departing in 20 minutes and I forgot to take the damned pocketknife off my keychain. "Trusty Rusty" was about to be confiscated. I knew it. But what could I do? Not a thing.
Now, a few weeks later, I can't remember the exact details of the scenario, though I remember being pissed — at the world, at the federal government (yes, I know they're just doing their job), and, perhaps more than anything, at myself. This had happened twice before, but I'd had the presence of mind to take an extra five minutes and mail it to myself from the airport's on-site post office. On this occasion, however, I was destined to lose my blade.
So, I wondered, what happened to my pocketknife?
The short answer is: It went either to Alabama or Kentucky, where those states' Surplus Property Divisions hold the mountains of knives, scissors and other "non-dangerous" items that passengers like myself surrender at airport security checkpoints. Those two Southern states hold contracts with the Transportation Security Administration, which oversees security operations at airports nationwide.
I immediately think, I'm going to find Trusty Rusty!
But then TSA spokesman Christopher White explains, "When we give [non-dangerous items] to Kentucky and Alabama, they're no longer government property. They can sell it on eBay or do whatever."
EBay — that one-stop shopping destination for every obscure item under the sun (no joke, there is a listing for "Saddam's Feeding Tube") — should've been my first guess as to where the pocketknife ended up. Alabama doesn't have an eBay identity, but Kentucky does; search for the username "kysurplus" and you'll find dozens of listings for knives and other sharp objects, some in bulk and others sold individually.
White, who's based in the Atlanta regional office, stresses that TSA does not profit from the sale of these items, and that the items are not confiscated, per se, since passengers can leave the queue with their banned belongings. Two other categories of surrendered items, hazardous materials and illegal weapons, are either sent to Science Application International Corporation in Reston, Va., (in the case of hazardous items, which are almost always cigarette lighters, which make up 80 percent of all surrendered items) or local law enforcement agencies (in the case of illegal weapons, such as bazookas).
Honestly, I don't give a damn about the lighters. Or bazookas. Lighters and bazookas don't clean my fingernails, or scratch off price tags from Christmas gifts, or offer any degree of personal security when I'm in a sketchy neighborhood. Those jobs are for pocketknives, and right now, I'm missing mine.
"Every eight to 10 weeks each state comes down [to Florida airports] — either us or Kentucky," explains Shane Bailey, the soft-spoken, Southern-accented division director of Alabama's Surplus Property Division. "We send two guys down there, rent a truck. We'll hit every major airport except Jacksonville." (Because of its out-of-the-way location, Bailey says traveling to Jacksonville isn't cost-effective.)
Alabama and Kentucky switch off trips, but those treks are becoming less frequent. In December, TSA decided to ease up on restrictions, allowing small scissors, screwdrivers, wrenches and pliers on planes. The TSA said security officers need to shift their focus to more important matters, like finding explosives. Hence, fewer scissors for Alabama.
The consequences of TSA's decision to reprioritize aren't grave, but they are significant. Alabama's Surplus Property Division doles out surrendered booty to 2,300 nonprofits and municipalities, which includes school boards. The scissors that are now allowed on Florida flights might've otherwise wound up in the hands of an Alabama grade school student.
Bailey doesn't mind getting less stuff. "We're not here to make a profit," he says, "we're here to provide a service." Alabama, notably, makes upwards of $4,000 on each run.
The state has two holding facilities, 125,000 square-foot warehouses located in Montgomery and the tiny enclave of Eva in north Alabama. In the last Florida shipment, Bailey says, they obtained a machete with a 24-inch blade. This, if nothing else, proves that Florida flyers can be tough customers (or else are monumentally stupid when it comes to stuff they try to take onto planes).
Machetes aside, Florida does have a much higher rate of stabbing incidents than Alabama or Kentucky. State figures from 2004 indicate that there were 1,360 aggravated assaults with knives in Alabama, 1,572 in Kentucky and 15,239 in Florida.
Granted, Florida's a more heavily populated state than its northern brethren, but a tenfold increase in knife assaults? Looking at the numbers, anyone visiting the Sunshine State could easily assume there's a bloodbath down here. Images of moms, dads and babies stabbing each other at Disney World come to mind. So do Palm Beach retirees, knifing each other over who gets control of the remote. Not the kind of thing we want in tourist brochures.
So maybe it's better that Florida doesn't get the spoils. But it is a little odd that, even though we have our own surplus agency, another state is benefiting from Florida's loss.
To solve that mystery, I called John Kuczwanski, deputy communications director for the Department of Management Services, which oversees federal surplus items that Florida acquires.
"Our program that oversees that is funded through selling surplus like helicopter parts and armor," he says from Tallahassee. "Surplus that's gathered at the airports is, like, nail clippers, so we wouldn't make a lot of money off of that."
I pose to him a hypothetical question: If Sarasota (or Tampa or St. Petersburg, for that matter) needed an armored vehicle, would they call Kuczwanski's department?
"They could put in a request, yes," he says dryly.
So there you have it: Lose a helicopter and you just call Tallahassee and put in a request for a new one. Lose your pocketknife at the airport and you'll have to wonder where in the world of eBay it ended up.
Which is where I find myself looking online for Trusty Rusty. Unfortunately, his description is pretty generic — black handle, with no distinguishing marks — though I go through the motions and surf 40-something entries on the Internet's leading auction site.
I'm staring blankly at the computer screen.
Rusty! I scream into the abyss.
It is a lost cause.
Rusty!!!
This article appears in Aug 2-8, 2006.