Detained By Security in Washington, DC

We were in Washington, D.C. And I was a security risk. Detained by a guard. In a uniform. With a badge. And a gun.

Well, I’m pretty sure he had a gun.

He was telling me, based on his investigation, what I could do and not do.

My offense?

I was carrying.

Of course I was.

We had parked the RV outside of D.C. proper. Packed a couple of meals and water in a backpack. Taken the Metro down to walk the Mall, took in some of the memorials, and visited different museums.

And like any time we planned to be “away from home” for a long period of time, in a strange and possibly dangerous city, I was carrying.

Carrying my trusty Swiss Army knife.

You know, to be prepared for any thread that needed trimming, letters that needed opening, slivers that needed tweezing, or wine corks that needed popping.

I love my Swiss Army knife. It’s a wide one with 32 different tools. I had my name engraved on the main blade.

I carried it everywhere.

But I had completely forgotten about the potential for tighter security in the buildings in D.C.

At first it wasn’t an issue.

After getting to the Mall, we began visiting memorials and museums. Some let us enter freely with no metal detectors or bag inspections. Some locations searched our backpacks, but had no problem with my knife.

Then we got to The National Air and Space Museum.

The rest of my family had gone in already. They were on the other side of the metal detectors, looking back at me.

Along with the security guard.

And he was holding my knife out to me.

“Sir, you can’t enter the museum with this knife.”

I nodded and took the knife back from him.

I looked at him.

I looked at my family.

I didn’t want to part with my knife. Bringing it back to the RV meant at least a two hour round trip of walking and metro-riding.

The only other option was not go in at all.

And miss the museum I was most interested in seeing.

“Sir.”

I looked back at the guard.

“You can’t enter the museum with the knife. But if you didn’t have the knife there would be no problem.”

Well, duh.

Wait, what?

I looked back at the guard. Was that a small angling of his chin towards the pavilion area in front of the museum?

I looked out the door.

Outside the front door of the museum were raised cement landscaping squares tall enough to allow people to sit on them. Inside the squares were a variety of shrubbery and ground cover.

I know he didn’t wink.

Did he?

Suddenly I saw the only option that allowed me to both experience the museum and have a chance of keeping my knife.

I walked back outdoors.

And found a place to sit on the edge of a landscape square with my back to the bushes.

And casually, ever so casually, stretched out my legs.

I put my hands behind me.

For support, you know.

I dug a shallow hiding place for my knife.

Covered it with dirt and leaves. And rested a few moments longer. People watching.

Just acting natural.

Not feeling at all nervous that at any moment another armed guard with a gun and walkie talkie would come busting out to see what kind of incendiary device I might have just hidden behind me.

Or that somewhere, in a back room, there weren’t three other guards gathered around a monitor, holding their sides in and howling at my white suburban boy attempt at subterfuge.

I wiped my hands on my pants.

And walked back into the museum.

I chose a different entry line with a different guard, of course. To save whatever face I may have left.

After a successful trip through the metal detectors, I rejoined my family.

“I had to bury my knife in the landscaping,” I told them.

To all of the giggling and eye-rolling you might imagine.

“I just hope it’s there when we go back out.”

And you know what?

It was.

The National Air and Space Museum is the fifth most visited museum in the world. Learn more at airandspace.si.edu.

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If you enjoyed this article, check out the book it came from: Driven to Wonder: Eight Years in an RV with Two Kids, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle versions.