I have a funny Phid story to relate. Last week, as reward for my hard work and commitment my job sent me to Switzerland for more hard work (well, actually not that hard). As I always do when flying I put my juice in the liquid bag and keep my Texas Chainsawed Mesquite Phidias in my laptop case until past security, and it worked fine leaving DFW airport. On the flight to Frankfurt I put the juice back into the Phidias and stealth vaped on the plane ride, all 9 hours of it.
After landing in Frankfurt we had to go through passport control and then go through security a second time for the flight to Zurich. Well, after being on a plane for 9 hours I was a little brain dead and forgot to take the juice out of my Phid. It was all assembled and in my laptop case when I put it on the belt for the x-ray machine. Oh - My - God!!! You would have thought I was smuggling some new explosive device through security. As I walked over to where the x-ray belt came out and allowed travelers to pick their life up after security, I immediately remembered that I didn't take the juice out. I looked at the x-ray screen and saw five security people looking and pointing at the Phidias. The nice lady helping folks get their belongings looked at me and I said "e-cigarette" and she immediately understood and shrugged her shoulders, went to the monitor and got into a conversation with the rest. It didn't seem to help, as she came back over and shrugged her shoulders again and stood there.
All this time, there were folks waiting to get their bags off the conveyor - and it just kept not going. They brought over more people, zoomed in, pointed, talked and nothing else for 45 minutes. They pulled my laptop case out of line and swabbed it and took the swabs to another room. The ran it back into the machine and looked some more. Finally after the explosive swab came back negative (thank the Lord I haven't been to the gun range lately!) they finally brought out my laptop case and the guy opened it in front of me. He carefully took the batter out, then started to pull the drip tip off but I said it just unscrews and I took the atomizer off for him. He told me "we don't know what it is - it could be TNT" to which I basically laughed but agreed not to carry it on next time. I told him I carry it on in the US all the time, and he basically said that US security is a joke and I told him that German security is much more thorough. We shook hands and I went on my way after nearly an hour. I felt bad for the people I held up and I think they may have missed their plane because of me. I was fairly happy and amused the whole time and that probably diffused the situation, but they were quite serious.
So, if traveling in Europe, I suggest checking your Phidias - or at least disassembling it prior to security. I intended to take a photo of the Texas Chainsawed Mesquite with the Alps in the background, but alas I totally forgot to do so. Here are some photos from the trip just because.
JAG