Flight of the Bumbled IV

Another flight--another potential conflict with the TSA agent. Today's therapy is visualization. Sit, calm, breathe deep, imagine a happy auspicious outcome to a delightful flight.

But, it's not going to happen. I'm a celiac and that requires a specialized diet that is 80% more expensive than normal food and it's not reimburseable by the government and I can't even take it off on taxes... but that tirade is for another time.

Anyway,

Anyway, when I fly across country I take the opportunity to purchase foodstuff from specialty stores that have heard of flours that are gluten-free, unlike Oklahoma.

Anyway,

Anyway, I am packing this stuff cross country. And it is going to be a problem because I have two entire suitcases packed with four gallon sized bags of white powder and eight little pouches of more white powder.

The powder is in reality just innocuous flours, potato and tapioca starch, sorghum and amaranth flour, and the pouches are guar gum. They really are what they are labeled, but TSA can't know that.

And that's going to cause a problem--a big problem--I'll probably be jailed, or at least waylayed for an hour, or a half hour, or even a minute while they identify the problem from the x-ray, open the bags to check it all for explosive chemicals... and ask all the probing questions. 

But no, not at all. I glide through security, without a comment, no bag check, no chem test, not even a backward glance, nor a flicking finger.  

Although I did have to stop, return and remove the ring that could potentially be a dangerous lazer.

So this round--to my mental chagrin--I again lose the TSA game.   There is no hope that a modicum of rationality exists and that I will be safe flying across the nation with unchecked bags of white potentially dangerous material.  

My ziplocks of white powder moved through airport security without a hitch. The husband later remarked, "The hard thing is to get it into the country from Colombia. But once it's here, it seems you can move it around with impunity."

And that makes all of us feel so secure.