Airports are a humour free zone . Polite smiles are permissible , that ' s about it . Especially in US , TSA controlled airports . Eek . I had about 1 cm of water in the bottom of a bottle going though LAX . Big mistake . Second mistake , when they asked me if there was water in the bag I reached for the bag on the counter to get it out . You would ' ve thought I ' d revealed a bomb vest they shouted stop , tensed up , put their hands on their holstered weapons . They get it out and give it to me . I ask if I can dump the water . No . Ok , I go to drink it . STOP ! Hand on weapons again . You ' d think I was going to explode if I drank that dihydrogen monoxide . Scary stuff . They escorted me out of security and told me I could drink it once the escorting agent had left , then go through security again . Totally insane . I guess the regs they have to enforce are so crazy they have to drink the koolaid or go nuts and ragequiit . But still . I hate travelling through the US . Cairo airport was less crazy a few months after the coup when I flew through there and they had APCs and the army hanging out . Same in Indonesia after the bombings , and when I flew into Brussels a few weeks after the France attacks . They ' re a bit paranoid , but focused on real risks and pretty sensible so long as you didn ' t do anything weird . Forgot water ? Here ' s the bin , next !