OH, yeah, and the horror story when I tried to bring the leftover bottles of wine from our wedding reception to my parents in SF. The wine was from a good local winery and I had the bottles bubble-wrapped and secure. That was in 2000 and I was on my way to another funeral, from Tucson. They acted like I was a drunk (I don't even drink), like I was going to attack someone with my wine bottles, etc. etc. They confiscated them and we eventually got them back. Last time I flew America Worst.
Sounds like you've had worse experiences than I have. Did these things happen at SFO? I NEVER fly out of SFO, I usually fly out of Oakland, and sometimes will take the longer trek to Sacramento because I've found that airport to be less obnoxious.
My daughter went to Shanghai, China, for her brown-belt karate examination at the Shao-Lin temple there, and when she came back she had bought a duffle-bag and stuffed it full of ornamental swords, daggers, knives, and sabers to pass out to her friends back home, more than 20 of them full size.
It was just prior to 9/11, but she carted that load of weapons all the way from Shang-hai to Korea to LAX to SLC and passed right through every customs and inspection point.
Curious... Huh?
Who would serve a snake anyway?
See you're causing trouble again...........Bad girl, um, er, reptile!