As a follow up on why the TSA charade was more amusing than an outrage was the context of our trip:
The trip was lots of fun as shown in the pictures. Unfortunately Alamo's rental car key was not attached to the key ring leaving behind only the remote and the plastic tag which fooled me into thinking I still had the key. We discovered it lost on Saturday afternoon and I spend 3 hours on the phone while Bev scoured Taos looking for the key - ending up with a locksmith driving an hour from Angel Fire but Alamo gave him the wrong key code so the key didn't work. Alamo still charged me $360. Another hour of arguing before I could get them to agree to tow our car and us back to their only New Mexico facility in Albuquerque to exchange for another rental car. The bill is still pendng on that. You can see why I labelled the Taos slideshow Chaos. On the bright side, we did get a "chauffered" three hour ride in 100 degree weather without airconditioning but open windows in a ten ton tow truck down mountain roads.

TSA was only a minor hassle in comparison. Now if I could only blame the PEG for losing the key
Charm