You only think your TSA story is bad.

I know I've been verbose lately on a forum that isn't my space, so skip this if you don't find me entertaining to at least some degree: I'm gonna vent.

My daughter is the child of divorce, and I'm sorry about that, it was out of my hands. My ex is a Scottish expat and current US citizen. Her parents, Tom and Ann, live in Scotland.

A few years back, my daughter had occasion to go on a two-week trip to Scotland with her (swanky consultant) Mom, during which the grandparents, my ex, and my daughter would fly over to Italy to spend some time in Tuscany and other places.

Tom, the patriarch, took an early pension from the UK police due to a heart condition. He's been retired since about 40, he's gifted a new car every two years from the government as part of his pension/medical care. He is addicted to morphine and painkillers. My daughter loves him dearly, but b4 their trip to Italy, Tom became frightened because no human being can convincingly carry hundreds of milligrams of morphine on a planned week's stay in a foreign country without showing a legit script for it, and not several, and not in amounts likely to kill an elephant.

So of course, Tom used my daughter as a drug mule to get through customs in Italy. He pressured her on their approach in the airport to carry bottles of morphine for him in her purse, and furiously admonished her (15 at the time) for not trusting him. She agreed to it, and they both were stopped in Italian customs. My daughter was questioned by Italian authorities under suspicion of being a drug smuggler, and she was subject to a thorough search the likes of which I doubt Malice has ever experienced. She spent hours in detention and being questioned. Tom was eventually able, somehow, to talk his way out of it, citing his history as a cop and simply acting like the Italians didn't know what they were talking about.

They didn't get out of the airport for almost a day, and I don't know what happened to Tom's morphine. I do know that the entire family treated my daughter like shit their entire stay. She carried their luggage for them (her mom broke her foot just before they left, so was incapacitated), and Tom who I imagine was bereft his lovely juices of the poppy tore into her on several occasions.

I can't/won't control my daughter seeing him, she's an adult now, but I have since advised him of the danger should he ever set foot in the US again. I don't think he will, he's getting too far gone to be away from his drugs and I don't believe he's long for this world, anyway. They used to think they were going to move over here with Angela, but I put a stop to that early in the marriage. They wore out their welcome quick, and my ex's new squeeze (another James who looks just like me) threw them out of their new digs, too.

Thanks for attending my useless bitching