A few years ago my husband and I left the kids with Grandma for a trip to Jamaica (first and last time, lol). My husband decided to bring his guitar in its case for us to listen to him play. We landed, I think, in Charlotte coming home and our luggage was the last to come down the luggage thingy. This was when the handlers were on strike or something and you needed to collect your bags to take to the next connecting flight and recheck them. We waited and waited with another backpacking young couple when they finally came down. We no sooner picked them up then security came over to us and the young couple to have us checked. They thoroughly went through our bags (dirty clothes and all) along with unwrapping some shells we had carefully wrapped up. They went through the guitar case thoroughly, too. All the while they told us their dogs sniffed something (no dog in sight) and were asking questions about where we were and if were asked to carry anything for anyone, did we smoke, etc. I don't remember being patted down but they do that when you board the plane initially. I was very shook up and trying not to act nervous as that may be a bad thing, lol. I believe they held our luggage along with that other couple's till the end to see who would pick them up.

We didn't miss our connecting flight, thank goodness. That was the only time this happened when we didn't have the kids with us.