The Smeller’s the Feller

Since I never work anyway (according to some), it will be no surprise that I ran across another humorous news article today. It reminded me again of how silly our airline security rules have become, and of course, how you can underestimate the stupidity of the general public. You can find the actual article here, and you can read my commentary below.

As many of you have experienced, or read about in my blog, the rules for items that can be passed through security are becoming more and more strict. No gels, liquids, lighters, aerosols, etc. Interestingly, this article points out a hole that I'm sure will soon be plugged (pun intended) in that matches are not restricted. As a matter of fact, according to this article, you can take up to eight books of matches onto an aircraft.

Let me get this straight. I can't take hand sanitizer on board or a mostly empty tube of toothpaste. I can't take Lysol air freshener or deodorant on board. I can, however, take enough matches to burn down the entire state of Texas. Given these odd rules, is it really any surprise that when a woman passenger has to pass gas during that she would light matches to cover the odor?

Well, maybe it's a little bit of surprise since generally only guys, and more specifically drunk, frat guys, try to light their farts, but what else was she supposed to do? The gas needed masking, and since the passengers had no gas masks, all you can do is light up. Heaven knows that matches are far safer than hand sanitizer. After all, they were safety matches. There's no safety in hand sanitizer. That stuff is a killer….of germs. And we sure don't want her to have any air freshener. That stuff could explode. A fire contained in a tube of metal roughly 6.5 miles above the surface of the earth, hurtling through the air at 550 mph is at least contained. Geez.

I'm wondering if the no smoking sign was off during this exercise, or if she's going to get in trouble for that. The article says that she has already been released (thank God. I don't think anyone could take any more releasing from her) and that she's not going to be charged. She apparently broke no rules; just wind. I guess that means that it was a smoking flight.

The other thing that I wonder is why they had to land the plane, deplane everyone, conduct an investigation, and interview passengers before they determined that this lady had been lighting matches. They say that there were 99 passengers, so the plane was probably fairly full. No one noticed those bright flares of light and thunderous roars of gas from her seat? Or did they think it was just part of the show?

All I'm saying is that as a result of this, not only will matches be banned, but they'll probably figure a way to make sure that we can't fart in mid-air either for fear that a crafty terrorist would ignite the gas with the spark of someone's seat belt and then use the plane as a flaming rocket to rain death and destruction on the infidel hoards. They'll probably have to install sniffers in every airport to conduct a Flatulent Attack Response Test (we'll call it the FART system) before allowing you to board. Next to go will be all of the fast food restaurants inside the secured areas of the airport because once you're past the sniffer, you can't be allowed to introduce anything that your body could convert into explosive materials. It stinks, but this article really doesn't bode well for McDonalds.