Buzz Feed – by Stephanie McNeal
Diana Durkin is a 19-year-old from Houston. She’s a sophomore at Texas Tech University, but took this past semester off to help her family recover from Hurricane Harvey. She told BuzzFeed News she’s REALLY excited to go back to school next week.
Diana has always had a lot of school spirit, and was even nominated for “most spirited” in high school. So when she got to Texas Tech, she said totally embraced her new school and all their customs and traditions.
Diana explained that Texas Tech fans say “wreck em’ and guns up” to each other when they see each other, and their hand symbol is a finger gun like this: 👉🏼.
“I love Texas Tech,” she said. “I love the people, I love the school. Anytime I see someone I get really excited.”
Over the holidays, Diana took a trip to visit her best friend. She said she woke up late on the day she had to leave and arrived with wet hair to William P. Hobby Airport in Houston.
When she was standing bored in the security line, she noticed a guy wearing a Texas Tech sweatshirt. Without thinking about it, she threw up her hand gun symbol to him.
“It’s a cool bonding thing. I tried to make eye contact with him and I throw my hand gun up.”
The man gave her a strange look, she said.
Suddenly, she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was a TSA agent, who pulled her out of line and asked to speak to her.
The agent sternly asked for her ID and said she was pulled for making gun symbols in the airport.
“She said, ‘What are you doing? You can’t do that in an airport.’”
She says she was terrified, thinking to herself, “Oh my gosh, they think I’m a terrorist,” and, “Oh my gosh I’m going to jail.”
“I’m just sitting there, almost in tears, like, ‘No, I’m just really dumb, I’m not a terrorist!’”
Diana said the ordeal felt like hours, but in reality was much shorter. She was given a full screening and pat down. She said she was panicking and even showed them her student ID to try and explain.
“Please don’t send me to jail, I’m not going to survive very long in jail,” she said she was thinking.
Finally, the TSA let Diana off with a warning, and she promised to never do it again. Meanwhile, a tweet she had sent out in a panic during the incident was quickly going viral.
In the airport security line and I see someone wearing a Texas Tech hoodie and I look at them and do the gun hand signal because wreck em amiright
tsa is now pulling me aside to talk to me :((
— diana (@dianadurkin) January 6, 2018
Some people also shared other silly ways they got in trouble by the TSA, like this girl and her Lush products.
https://twitter.com/Morte_aeternax/status/950182320102952960
Diana said she was shocked by how big her tweet got, so felt she had to call her mom to warn her. Her mom hung up on her in frustration at first, but has since embraced her daughter’s fame, calling herself “Kris Jenner.” 😹
https://twitter.com/dianadurkin/status/950117224605503489
“It’s definitely going to her head,” Diana said.
In the end, Diana’s glad all she got was a funny story.
“At the time, I was scared to death,” she said.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/guns-up?bftw&utm_term=.xkkrZ8kRQ#.efkPAaEGR
Ya know…
I had a sign language class in grade school.
But I failed it… I really hate to admit it.
Because. … when I signed the middle finger.
The nun took me back in cloak room and beat my knuckles with a ruler.
Thank god the metric system wasn’t in place.
Because I would have more mental scars.
I laugh so hard to make milk shoot out my nose and I don’t drink milk!
Nuckin’ Funs.
if the TSA thinks this is bad, and are afraid of a little hand sign
just wait til the this whole thing goes hot in this country .. hands and fingers will be the least of their worries
“I’m just sitting there, almost in tears, like, ‘No, I’m just really dumb, I’m not a terrorist!’”
Wrong.
You are, according to the so-called ‘government’s’ new terrorist guidelines.
“Please don’t send me to jail, I’m not going to survive very long in jail,” she said she was thinking.”
You’d not only survive, you’d be VERY well-received… by the pigs.
Repeatedly.
Welcome to America! Obey the Nazis or be questioned or beaten.
And the TSA left her with a “warning”. Seriously? How much more pathetic can the TSA be?
How much you wanna make a bet she’s done flying