peanut butter mule
Mood:  suave
Now Playing: Educational hygiene videos from the 1960s

This story is probably going to get me added to the "No Fly" list, but... 

My mom is seriously addicted to a brand of peanut butter not available in her area of the country.  She asked if I would bring a jar with me last weekend when I flew to Baltimore.  Stupidly, I put it in my carry-on bag, thinking that OF COURSE peanut butter wouldn't be classified as a liquid, gel, or aerosol under the new FAA regulations.

No go.  I knew I was in trouble when the X-ray lady started inching my bag back and forth on the belt.  There was a minor kerfuffle, during which the jar was removed from the bag and brandished accusingly. I pleaded that it was a special gift for my dear mother, that technically peanut butter isn't a liquid or hazardous substance, and besides they hand out free peanuts during the flight anyway so why arbitrarily criminalize peanut butter?  Each plea got the same response: "I'm sorry, ma'am, but you're going to have to throw this out."  (Never argue with security personnel.)

I decided I wasn't going to let a bunch of terrorists stop my mother from getting her peanut butter.  There was still half an hour left before boarding.  I walked back to the car, opened the trunk, got out a plastic bag and a Swiss army knife, and started scooping the peanut butter into the bag.  In my furtive haste, I cut my finger.  Anybody watching through a surveillance camera would have seen an agitated passenger rummaging ritualistically inside a car trunk, fiddling with a knife and a jar, flinging blood onto the pavement, and muttering incoherently.  The scene wouldn't have looked out of place in a Murray Whelan telemovie.

Then I wrapped the bag in a paper towel, stuffed it in my sock, and limped nonchalantly through the metal detector, reeking of peanuts (thank goodness they didn't have bomb-sniffing dogs, or my ankle would have been toast).  The expression on my mom's face when I handed her the goods was priceless.  My sister accused me of being a "peanut butter mule".

Just to wrest this post vaguely back on topic, the reason I was traveling was to attend a family party for one of my cousins who just got married.   They lived in Sydney for many years, in Bellevue Hill.  My cousin was 13 when they moved, and it was a bit of a cultural adjustment to get used to school uniforms (gray tunics, gray underwear, house girdles).  When they handed her the list of school supplies, she was momentarily confused to see rubbers on the list.  In most places in the English-speaking world rubbers are erasers, but in the US they're condoms.

Similarly, we say "pencil", but they say "tractor"; and their word for "ruler" is "weapons-grade plutonium".  No wonder the school supply list was confusing.