LETHAL WEAPON 5: TSA, a True Story

(Setting: St. Louis airport, security line, every few people are having their bags checked extra thoroughly, I get selected for that, and a TSA officer takes out my keys and informs me that I can't bring my cat-shaped keychain through because it has recently been declared a lethal weapon in the state of Missouri, he tells me that they're going to confiscate it and file a report and then I can go get on my plane, I am waiting next to two other TSA officers, a male and a female, for a cop to come and sign the confiscation form so I can be on my way, as promised.)
Male Security Guard: Do you live in St. Louis?
Me: No, I'm just here for the weekend for my grandma's funeral.
Male SG: Oh. Sorry.
(pause)
Male SG: Why did you have this keychain on your keys anyway?
Me: I live in New Orleans.
Female SG: (Seriously) That's a very good reason to have that.
Male SG: Why? You don't feel safe there?
Female: It's a dangerous city. Women are attacked there probably more than anywhere else in the country.
Male SG: Oh… Well, where'd you get it?
Me: Well, my cousin got it for me in Missouri, but they have them in grocery stores in Louisiana. They sell them all over.
Male SG: Well, you shouldn't ever let an attacker close enough to you to use this thing anyway.
Me: Excuse me, *LET*? You think that women just *LET* attackers walk up to them? No, one second a dude is asking you for a dollar and the next he grabs you and tells you he's going to take you home. Women don't just *LET* people attack them.
Male SG: That happened to you? How'd you get him off of you?
Me: I happened to have a knife in my pocket and I pulled it out and it startled him when he saw it so he let go of me for a second and then I ran away.
Male SG: Yeah, but stuff like that doesn't happen that often.
Me: Actually, men yell threatening, sexually explicit things at me pretty much every day when I bike to work or wait for the bus, but if we're talking about particular situations where a weapon might need to be used, not long after that a guy started waiting outside my girlfriend's apartment for her so that he could expose himself to her and attempt to masturbate on her when she would try to walk to her car.
Female SG: Disgusting.
Male SG: Why didn't she call the cops?
Me: She called the cops REPEATEDLY.
Female SG: Did they ever catch the fucker?
Me: Not that we know of.
Male SG: That's fucked up. No wonder y'all feel like you need to arm yourself. (Takes keychain in fist and squeezes it.) Not that you could do much damage with something like this.
Female SG: No, a big guy could easily snap that in half before she even had a chance to scratch him.
(Cop arrives to sign the report. Takes the keychain from the security guard.)
Cop: Ma'am, I'm going to have to arrest you for possession of a deadly weapon.
(Security guards try to get the officer to just file the report and confiscate the keychain, telling him I live in New Orleans where the keychain is legal and that I'm just here for a funeral and etc. but he insists on arresting me.)

(Later, in the little criminal detainment room with the cop, I am crying hysterically)
Cop: I don't understand why you're crying. It really isn't that big of a deal.
Me: Well, my grandma's funeral was yesterday. I've honestly been trying not to cry all morning. Not to mention, you're arresting me and undoubtedly causing me to have to pay thousands of dollars that I don't have for carrying a cat-shaped women's self-defense keychain that I clearly had no idea was illegal, that *is* legal in almost every state, including the one I live in, and that was legally purchased for me in *this* state. I have no criminal record. You were asked to just confiscate it and let it go by the security guards, but it was YOUR decision to go ahead and make the arrest. So yeah, you get to deal with me crying right now. Sorry to make YOU uncomfortable.
(And then we sit awkwardly in silence and wait for a long time for some other smarter cop who knows the codes for the paperwork who can tell this cop how to fill out the arrest forms because he doesn't know how.)