Ask the pilot

I can't carry liquids and gels on the plane, but what about mashed potatoes? Plus: Need a little humor to get you through your long holiday flight? Try SkyMaul.

By Patrick Smith

Read more: Technology & Business, Thanksgiving, Business, P. Smith, Ask the Pilot

Nov. 22, 2006 | It's Thanksgiving again. In terminals around the country, camera crews are getting in position. It's time for the media's annual barrage of crowded-airport stories. I feel bad for the reporter who draws the short straw for these pointless assignments. "Lorraine, sorry, but we're gonna need you live from LAX on Wednesday afternoon for a critical, 11-second segment to run between sports and the lottery numbers." We've grown accustomed to their stories -- quick little drive-by segments that seldom stray from the boilerplate: Remark on how many millions of Americans are expected to fly between Wednesday and Sunday; remind them to arrive at the airport as early as possible; get some shots of stranded travelers sleeping on the floor; interview a bedraggled passenger who, after standing in a security line for the past 190 minutes, is happy to chime in, "Well, at least we're safer." They might as well use the same clips every year.

My own pre-holiday columns have followed basically the same pattern: Remark on how many millions of Americans are crazy enough to fly between Wednesday and Sunday; remind them to arrive as early as possible; make fun of stranded travelers forced to eat Chick-fil-A sandwiches for Thanksgiving dinner; ridicule somebody else's story in which a bedraggled passenger, after standing in a security line for 190 minutes, was happy to chime in, "Well, at least we're safer."

New carry-on rules mean those security lines are going to be abominable this week, perhaps making for juicier than normal footage. I'll be watching from a safe distance, snickering at the television: "Really, how can a nation that doesn't allow cranberry sauce on a plane not be the safest nation on earth?"

There's a certain weirdness to the idea of food being a potential terrorist weapon, but since the TSA has insisted on bringing this absurdity to bear, here's a brainteaser: mashed potatoes. A few years ago we learned that holiday fruitcakes are prone to set off airport explosives detectors, but in light of the new liquids and gels prohibitions, what about mashed potatoes? Mashed potatoes are a hybrid threat: not quite solid, not quite liquid, and only semi-gel-like (unless they're overcooked). Am I allowed to bring a Tupperware container full of mashed onto my flight?

You think this is silly, and it is, but a week ago my mother caused a small commotion at a checkpoint at Boston-Logan after screeners discovered a large container of homemade tomato sauce in her bag. What with the preponderance of spaghetti grenades and lasagna bombs, we can all be proud of their vigilance. And, as a liquid, tomato sauce is in clear violation of the Transportation Security Administration's carry-on statutes. But this time, there was a wrinkle: The sauce was frozen.

No longer in its liquid state, the sauce had the guards in a scramble. According to my mother's account, a supervisor was called over to help assess the situation. He spent several moments stroking his chin. "He struck me as the type of person who spent most of his life traveling with the circus," says Mom, who never pulls a punch, "and was only vaguely familiar with the concept of refrigeration." Nonetheless, drawing from his experiences in grade-school chemistry and at the TSA academy, he sized things up. "It's not a liquid right now," he observantly noted. "But it will be soon."

"I wonder if this isn't a test," murmured another guard. The dreaded, mind-bending, what-if-it's-frozen test.

"Please," urged my mother. "Please don't take away my dinner."

Lo and behold, they did not. Whether out of confusion, sympathy or embarrassment, she was allowed to pass with her murderous marinara.

My father, meanwhile, was at the adjacent checkpoint, arguing with a screener over a can of shaving cream and a small collection of fishing lures.

All of this took several minutes. During that time, a hundred or so passengers languished behind my parents in a long line, impatiently waiting their turn for what ought to be a "Candid Camera" sketch, but instead is our version of national security.

Thanks in part to cheap airfares, the Thanksgiving weekend travel rush has set new domestic passenger records for each of the past few years. Will this year be different? Ticket prices remain low, but I suspect unprecedented numbers of Americans will be opting not to fly. If the pre-holiday madness I've witnessed and have had described to me over the past several weeks is any indication, terminals are going to be hellish.

Inanity of the rules aside, one way to get the lines moving faster is if passengers and their carry-ons are better prepared. Make sure your tubes and vials are of the correct volume (more on that in a minute) and properly packed in the officially sanctioned, quart-size, sealable and transparent plastic bag. The TSA has put together a traveling road show of sorts, staging media events at various airports. There's your security dollar hard at work: giving packing lessons to the public.

Next page: If you're venturing into the craziness, you'll need something funny to keep you from going berserk at the X-ray machine