You call this security?

The last couple of weeks, something strange and annoying has consistently happened to me. Every single time I walk through those security things they have out front of shops, the thing screeches. I have no idea why, but it's wearing thin. The embarrassment of having everyone in the store stop and look to see why their ears are being assaulted horrific. Now, I have no idea what in my bag is causing this, but I'm so close to standing at one of these gates and passing each individual item through it so that I can find the offending item and drop it off the nearest tall building. It really is getting too much, the staring, the covering my ears as I walk through, staff rushing to check my bag...

Wait a minute, hang on - actually, no-one has rushed to check my bag. That's strange - for two weeks I've been setting off alarms and not one store member has asked to check my bag. Let me think back to all the alarms I've been setting off.

• Target - No. Actually, not one single staff member looked at me or even batted an eye.
• Big W - Well, the door greeter looked at me, but didn't seem concerned.
• Priceline - Other customers looked at me. The register operator glared at me as if reprimanding me for the noise I'd caused.
• Chemist Warehouse - The register operator glanced at my bag and shrugged.
• Several clothing shops - salespeople gave me a once-over and turned the other way.
• Myer - No staff member in sight, and none appeared at the noise.
• Coles - Operators on the express lane looked around and shook their heads at the noise.

Actually, I'm right - not one single bag check conducted in my two weeks of setting off alarms. What is going on? Fair enough, my bag is easily identifiable as a designer handbag (large metal logo) with an RRP in the region of $200, and I'm generally dressed pretty well - skinny jeans and a nice t-shirt at the least, lately. I'm clean, well-groomed and wearing shoes. Also, I'm not running, and appear rather peeved at the beeping. Is this appearance enough to override the usually telling screech of a security system? If so, I'm starting to wonder how exactly Winona Ryder was caught shoplifting, rather than how she managed to take so much. I mean, if no-one will ask to check the handbag of little old me, who would get up the nerve to ask a movie star? More to the point, has anyone told these places what an absolute waste of money their security system is? They could save heaps of money by having someone stand at the door and pull up all the scruffy, no-shoed people, and wave the pretty ones right by.

Funnily enough, this isn't the only time I've seen bad security practices. Anyone who lives in Brisbane knows that these days, you can't get off a train in the city around peak hour without passing security who check tickets. I've seen scruffy-looking people clearly holding tickets close to the security personnel be held up and have their ticket scrutinised, however I can be still trying to pull my ticket out of it's pocket in my bag and be waved through. Yes, when they haven't even seen a ticket. Then there are the days when I'm holding up my ticket, and while they're stopping everyone else, they just wave me on. I've actually traveled around for two days (unintentionally) on an expired ticket, simply by holding it up as I walk past. I was shocked when I realised that I hadn't gotten a new weekly ticket that week (I'd had that day off) and hadn't even been stopped once.

I'm sure many of you out there have experienced something like this, and I'd be really interested to hear about it. Leave a comment if you've got a 'security? what security?' moment you'd like to share.

EDIT: Update, after a few more weeks of setting off alarms, I discovered that it was something in my wallet causing the problem after it set off an alarm when I ducked into the chemist without the rest of my bag. I'm still unsure what it was in my wallet causing the problem, but the friendly register person swiped it over their magic magnetic security tag deactivator thingy, and I finally found some peace!