Flying Home..but never again on american flights

Just came back from SG. Like i told Cynthia, you dunno what u are missing till u leave it behind.

Came back like a whirlwind and gone in a flash last weekend. Was a long weekend for HK and so i booked a flight back on Friday nite and came back on Tues morn. Never again will I takeAmerican Flights if possible as the inspection was crazy and the line was really long. While waiting, i came across 2 other singaporeans like myself rushing back for the short hols. So we chatted abit and exchange numbers since there was nothing else to do in line.

What was funny was i asked the checkin counter if i could bring my small tube of Ettusais concealer (length of your index finger and 1/4 filled) and lip balm on board, she said yes. Yet at the gate where they did manual inspection, the HK officials took it out of my transparent pouch and said i cannot bring it on. I argued that the checkin saw it and said yes. The inspectors said i could only bring it on if they were contained in a transparent zipper bag (i see no difference from my transparent pouch really).

So i had to grab a zipper bag from the staff at the boarding gate 100m away and in the end, when i was boarding, i still was holding on in my left hand the empty ziplock bag, and right hand my concealer and lip balm. Do you see the fallacy of this idiotic meaningless excercise?

1) My stuff was already in a transparent pouch which they took out and said it was cream and hence i cannot bring it on board.
2) when i argue with the HK inspectors, they then said i could bring it on if it was in a zipper bag. Suddenly the point abt it being cream doesnt seem to matter anymore.
3) when i board, i was holding the items in one hand and zipper bag in the other and no one said a thiing. So what is the point of zipper bag???!!!

So am i picky here, or are some officials just literally following instructions blindly without logc?.

In singapore, the custom back was a breeze. They did physical inspection as well and they left my lip balm alone but ensuring my camera and hp was turn on for checks. And they did interviews and body pat down. Everything took less than 30mins. In Hk, it took close to 2 hrs trying to get to the boarding gate for the same airline. U go judge yourself. In anycase, if i am departing from HK, stick best to SQ and Cathay to avoid all these hassles.