Explosives on a Plane

It was summer 2002. Only eights months after the September 11th fiasco and the country was still reeling in the aftermath. That summer I somehow conned my hippie dad into going on a road trip up the California coast. Our ultimate destination was Canada, and I had a friend who was living in Medford, Oregon. We took our sweet time meandering up the 101. Plenty of rest stops for smoke and an occasional tall can. Had the video camera to document it all…couldn't of been better. The trip got cut short due to one of those "family emergency" situations that I'll spare the details of. Long story short, we had to turn around and get to LAX – fast. So fast in fact, that I didn't even get to change clothes or get a new bag together – I simply went with what I had on me.

So airport security is supposed to be on point now, right? I mean, you know…it's not even a year after the World Trade Center thing. So you can imagine the utter shock I felt when I was going to bed that night in Detroit, and happened to casually glance down at my backpack pocket – a mesh pocket. I noticed one or two pieces of what looked like green twine poking through the mesh.

"Holy (insert expletive of your choice here)…..!!!!" I exclaimed to myself as I realized the severity of what had just happened.

It was at this point I discovered that I'd just successfully, albeit unintentionally, snuck through two of America's biggest airports with four M-100 firecrackers on my person. That backpack passed at least four security checkpoints and went through the X-Ray scanner at LAX – nobody even noticed. And the firecrackers were so blatantly obvious: wicks poking out, the faint glow of red emanating from behind the black mesh…I couldn't believe it, and I still can't believe it to this day.

I often tremble to think at the mess I would have been in had somebody noticed. I mean, after all this is Bush-World, and we've all heard the horror stories of those poor individuals who got detained two years for accidentally saying the word 'bomb,' or had the misfortune of getting tarred and feathered for having the audacity to bring a cigarette lighter onboard. And I tremble even harder thinking of the mess we could all have been in had I been somebody with ill intentions. I mean, just one of those firecrackers would certainly emit enough force to depressurize the entire cabin, and all four of them at once would of likely blown windows out and caused a serious ruckus.

Luckily for me nobody noticed or I'd still probably be in a Federal prison for terrorists, or even worse, stowed away to rot in one of Bush's internment camps somewhere east of BFE.

Always be aware of the cargo you're carrying!!!