Just in time for Christmas, er, the holiday season, FRUITCAKE has now been officially declared an airline security threat in carry-on luggage.
Is nothing sacred?
Even Yetta, my late mother AKA intrepid inventor of the previously chronicled Weaponized Matzo Ball, also made a seasonally induced Killer Fruitcake, jam-packed with candied fruits and nuts – indeed, so dense I bet you really could hide an al-Qaida suitcase nuke inside without immediate detection ... if your political inclinations went that way.
That is, 'til your "agita" kicked in.
"If you try to bring a fruitcake on-board," the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority warns hapless airline passengers, "expect it to be X-rayed because they are dense and could hide a weapon."
Take it from me, folks – it's no fun being pulled from a check-in line at the airport to have your luggage publicly searched by some ham-handed, barely apologetic government thug who mucks up your meticulously calibrated packing while queues of the curious meander by, casting pitying glances in the direction of your tacky black lace undies displayed like a bargain basement fire-sale. Can you spell h-u-m-i-l-i-a-t-i-o-n?
That's what happened to me recently while ... leaving Las Vegas.
No wonder that's still such a popular movie title ... you remember: Nick Cage drinks himself to death in Sin City? While a hooker watches? And then she relates it to her shrink?
Well, they really deserve a sequel ...
Nick Cage returns from the dead to haunt the corridors of McCarran Airport, an already unforgettable place with wall-to-wall slot machines everywhere except the latrines. Wherever you turn, theeeeeere's Nick, loping along like Lurch, rolling his goiter eyes back into his skull as if he was the Head Zombie.
Cut to a wide shot of him brandishing his inevitable invention designed to enlist more victims: A combination vibrator-slot machine, which he unleashes on an unsuspecting stewardess, brilliantly played by a despondent Minnie Driver, seeking consolation because her flight-captain boyfriend has once again betrayed her.
No need to go on. You get the picture.
But seriously, those security folks at McCarran are so sharp-eyed, they actually pull me aside after my baggage passes through the X-ray machine because some federal conveyor-belt jockey notices a half-inch dulled-out sewing scissors in my backpack – the same forgotten scissors already previously overlooked in airports in Philly and Frisco.
Boy, was I embarrassed.
They're so nice about it, too. "What do you have next to your nail-file?" one gummint guy asks me. "What nail-file?" I hold up my hands for his inspection. "Look," I say, "see how I bite them."
Although I always leave nail-file, toenail clippers and even tweezers at home when I fly, I'd completely forgotten about the tiny traveling sewing kit purchased for a buck two trips ago, in Frisco, to repair a hole in my black hooded sweater.
And so, rather than feeling like an Enemy of the State, I merely felt like a jerk. Strangely enough, though, they do not confiscate my scissors this time. I escape with just a warning. But what if, instead of a dollar sewing kit, it were fruitcake, a cement-like confection crammed chock-a-block with cherries and that Technicolor citron you so love to pick out and use in your BB gun for target practice when those oh-so-greedy crows go after the strawberry plants.
Uh, sorry, wrong season. But you get the picture. As for me, I usually date fruitcakes rather than eat them.
Truly, I long for simpler, less critical times when the acronym PC merely referred to Personal Computer rather than Political Correctness. Yep, I blame this fruitcake brouhaha on PC, and here's why. But wait – let me say this: You figure it out.
Take every bad joke – or urban legend – about hacksaws baked into loaves of bread for prisoners, and you have the essence of Martha Stewart-ism run amok.
I ask you, who's gonna bake box-cutters into Granny's fruitcake? Who? If so, will brandy in the batter make it taste better? Aren't we giving terrorists a leetle too much credit? What's next, Pfeffernuesse-cookie grenades? Besides, aren't we really the true terrorists, what with our apparent penchant for endless speculation and fear mongering and dramarama? Where will it all end?
Joy to the world!