[Buug959]

Let's start this story by saying that I am that guy that gets "randomly selected" for the more intense screening when I fly. Happens 9 out of 10 times. I don't mind, it just doesn't seem very "random" to me.
One time my partner and I were flying out of Tampa and I managed to NOT get randomly selected and had almost made it through screening, I was just waiting for my carry-on bag to exit the X-ray. I watched the TSA guy on the machine stop the belt, reverse it and stop it again. I could then see him flipping through a few different screens on the monitor although I couldn't see the monitor itself. He didn't quite rub his chin but it sure looked like he wanted to. He then called a colleague over for a look. They both looked at the monitor for a minute until the second guy just kinda shrugged his shoulders and walked away.
Now I'm doing a mental inventory of what I had in my bag and drawing a complete blank as to what has caught TSA's attention. The guy on the monitor then asks me the dreaded question, "What have you got in your bag?" I had no answer for him other than a change of clothes and some camera gear. I turned to my partner for help and she didn't have any idea either. Now I'm trying to think if I had left my bag unattended at any time. Nope. By now the TSA guy is getting a little impatient and he swings the monitor around far enough for me to see what was on the screen that had him so confused.
Now a little bit of the back story. We were on our way home from a couple of weeks vacation. We often pick up some art as a souvenir of our travels. Not the "exit through the gift shop" kind of shit, real art, often street art. On this trip we found a cast iron mask of a medieval looking king that we both really liked. It's about 18" tall and 8" wide. We picked it up very early on our trip and put it in my carry-on bag right away. We had both forgotten that we had even bought it. It all came rushing back when the TSA guy turned the monitor. It also explained why he was so interested in the image on the screen. It was bright orange and it was Jesus! I mean it looked exactly like Jesus Christ himself was on the monitor. Needless to say, after telling him what it was and why we had forgotten about it, he made me empty my bag right there and take it out to show him. He even swabbed it for drugs/explosives after calling the other guy back over to see what it was. We all had a good laugh out of it. Of course the swab came back negative, it was cast iron after all, and we were free to go.
It's a bit of a funny story now but a little unnerving at the time. Here is the mask that all the fuss was about.