Good morning.

In just 7 days, we'll be getting ready to board a commercial airliner to head south for our visit with the mouse. Like any savvy traveler, I've been spending some time poring over my airline regulations and the TSA guidelines for travel.


It's been four years since I was last on a plane. I was actually pondering that the other evening. It's been 15 years since...you know. (That's actually the stunner - I'll say it again; 15 YEARS.) Since that September morn, I've been on a plane just 3 times. 15 years before that was 1986; in those 15 years I had occasion to fly about 8 times, or roughly every other year. I still remember one time I only flew with a carry-on; I got dropped off at the airport about 20 minutes before my flight. I was able to breeze through security, walk to the gate, and get on board immediately. Try that now.

But back to those rules. TSA has a laundry list of things you can take in your carry-on bag, and even more that they recommend be exclusively carried in your checked bags. You can see the entire list here. But we'll focus on a couple of things that leaped out at me.

I'm quite relieved that cranberry sauce, gravy, and maple syrup are allowed on-board. (OK, it's probably the thanksgiving list, but right at the top of this page?)

I recall the great Snow Globe controversy - apparently, globes greater than 3.4 liquid ounces could detonate somehow.

Speaking of detonation, I'm really glad I didn't get the Dr. Scholl's gel-sport insoles for my trip. Can't have them in your shoes.

Thanks to those morons that tried to mix together stuff on a plane (they made heat and smoke), any and all toiletries, pastes, and other such things need to comply with the "3-1-1" rule. This includes some prescription surfacants - Mrs. TriSec has long had psoriasis, and it's gotten worse this summer. Her doctor just prescribed a noxious tub of salve - we can't take that on board.

Even though syrups and gravies are allowed, things like jello cups, yogurt, and other "gel-like substances" don't get to go. "Non-liquid, Non-gel foods" are allowed, so there is that. (Unless ISIS develops the "Clif Bar Bomb", I guess.)

Finally, we get to the meat of my story today. There's a lengthy list of prohibited items, some of which you can't even put in your checked bags.

Box Cutters
Ice Axes/Ice Picks
Knives - prohibited as carry-on except for plastic or round bladed butter knives.
Meat Cleavers
Razor-Type Blades, such as box cutters, utility knives, razor blades not in a cartridge, but excluding safety razors (disposable razors and their cartridges are permitted)
Sabers
Scissors - metal with pointed tips and blades longer than four inches
Swords
Baseball Bats
Bows and Arrows
Cricket Bats
Golf Clubs
Hockey Sticks
Lacrosse Sticks
Pool Cues
Ski Poles
Spear Guns
BB guns
Compressed Air Guns
Firearms
Flare Guns
Flares
Gun Lighters
Gun Powder (including black powder and percussion caps)
Parts of Guns and Firearms
Pellet Guns
Realistic Replicas of Firearms
Starter Pistols
Axes and Hatchets
Cattle Prods
Crowbars
Hammers
Drills (including cordless portable power drills)
Saws (including cordless portable power saws)
Tools (greater than seven inches in length) {{ insert joke here }}
Billy Clubs
Black Jacks
Brass Knuckles
Kubatons
Mace/Pepper Spray
Martial Arts Weapons
Night Sticks
Nunchakus
Stun Guns/Shocking Devices
Throwing Stars

This rather struck a chord with me. I've flown with pocketknives before, with nobody even blinking at them. (In the before-time.) A classic John Wayne movie, (The High and the Mighty) features a scene with a passenger boarding with a handgun on his hip. (this was the 1950s). But think about this - the only thing I have on board is a flimsy, plastic, rounded, butter knife. If anything happens, we're SOL.

But - I work near a large shopping mall in my retail job. We've seen it repeatedly of late. It wouldn't take too much of a stretch to imagine some moron going berserk in there one day. But instead of screening everyone who walks through the front door and disarming them, the powers-that-be gnash their teeth and rend their garments over there not being enough citizens with guns around to "protect" themselves.

It is an interesting double-standard, to say the least.

So in any case...in seven days we're off at long last. Of course there will be a full report upon our return.