I don’t want to over-dramatize, but I had a taste of the Bush police state this weekend. I crossed the line, and felt the force of the federal government bearing down on me. I tasted totalitarianism.
I was dragged into The Castle, playing the role of K.
The TSA tried to take my Trader Joe’s salsa.
As I was checking through security at an airport that shall remain nameless, the TSA official saw something suspicious on his X-ray. A cluster of specialists stared at the screen, and then handed my bag to an Oriental TSA lady. She rummaged through my used shirts and dirty underwear, and then found it.
Paydirt!
I had tried to smuggle a jar of Trader Joe’s Habanero Lime Salsa and another of General Tsao’s Stir Fry Sauce onto the airplane. I bet she gets a little thrill every time she pulls out some nail polish that some elderly woman forgot she had the pocket of her suitcase. Another blow for freedom, freedom from fear.
“ Do you know about the TSA’s policy on liquids?” Her voice somewhere between Gestapo-threatening and Elementary-Teacher-condescending.
“ But it’s Trader Joe’s!” I protested. “And salsa isn’t liquid,” I thought, too late to say anything.
There was no use protesting. Either we check the bag, or they confiscate my stuff, and they go home at 5 to a dinner of General Tsao’s Stir Fry, compliments of me.
“ In England, someone was able to construct a bomb using liquids,” another TSA official explained. “We can’t let anything over 3 ounces through.”
Of course I knew that. I’m careful to put my shampoo and liquid soap in the transparent baggy. Full disclosure on toiletries I can understand.
But this was Trader Joe’s! It was salsa!
Besides, what keeps me and my terrorist buddies (assuming I had such, which I don’t) from carrying three ounces of explosive facial cream each, and then constructing a bomb on the other side of security?
Plus, they let me keep my Trader Joe’s Ginger Snaps and my Australian Red Licorice. Apparently, it’s technologically possible to disguise explosives as salsa, but terrorists have found no way to disguise explosives in a solid form.
This gets things backwards. It’s fairly well established that Australian Red Licorice is actually made from the very same materials as plastic explosives, though in a slightly different combination. And if they want to confiscate something really dangerous, they should start with Ginger Snaps.
It was a tiny inconvenience, of course, and better, I reflected, than being blown up in the air between, well, between somewhere nameless and home. Maybe, I thought later, I was over-dramatizing just a bit.
Once I’d had my rant, though, I still had this nagging question: Exactly how are we protected by being criminalized for lugging our salsa in a carry-on bag?