Something Else Not Allowed on Planes

It is time for a funny story or a ridiculous one, depending on your point of view.

I have friends who went off for a conference in California a few weeks ago. Like all conferences, it was fun and inspiring and chock full of good ideas to take home. As part of the conference, the attendees were given little souvenir gigaws, some of which illustrated concepts that were discussed. One of the souvenirs was a little wood baseball bat, similar to the ones you can get at the ball park. Similar to these I found at the Bargain Factory in Grandview the other day. Now, some folks had to leave early before all the events were concluded. They packed up all their personals, including their souvenir bats and headed off to the airport.

I bet you know where this is going.

Word began filtering back to the conference site: pack your little bats
in your checked bag, or send them home by post or carrier. Because they seemed to be not allowed on the plane. When I heard this tale, I just burst out laughing. There is no end to the TSA and the stories it generates. Now, I suppose that the little bats could be used as weapons or to conceal a weapon, but it seemed a bit foolish to ban them. The x-ray machine would penetrate the wood, and the explosives detector would sense flammables assuming the TSA was using them correctly. Unless you are a ninja, they are really too small to do much harm in and of themselves.

In the ten years since 9/11, what is one of the things that has changed the most? Traveling by air.