Ford blogger event: the butterknife incident

Carolyn, here looking confused on a Delta flight, has begun posting about our trip to LA, in which the Ford company put us up in the Hotel Roosevelt, carted us around Hollywood, and sent us off in Ford Escapes to sightsee in unusual ways.


Here is an unflattering picture of me in a Ford Escape. All photos from here on will be snatched off Carolyn's blog, because I didn't bring a camera.


You can't tell here, but the upholstery is made of recycled post-industrial waste. Specifically, the bits of plastic made in the plastic factory that get cut off and fall on the floor while plastic water bottles are being made.

Carolyn's airline jeremiad reminded me of the thing that happened to me on the way back from LA:

I'm at LAX, going through security, congratulating myself on being such a seasoned traveler. My shoes (flats, easy to get on and off) are in a bin along with a plastic bag containing sub-three-ounce containers of lotion, lip gloss, and mascara, my laptop is in another bin, and none of the snack items packed in my purse could remotely qualify as a forbidden "gel."

(Last time I flew, I became very angry at the large woman from TSA who confiscated my 20-grams-of-protein, ultra-low-carb, 100 calories of Sylvester Stallone-endorsed can of chocolate protein pudding. But I digress).

The guy operating the conveyor belt stops the belt with my bag -- the goody bag I had received from Ford, containing a Ford travel mug, t-shirts, and all manner of snacks -- inside the x-ray chamber. He calls over another guy to look at the monitor. The second guy is a sort of policeman-looking dude with a mustache. He pulls me and the bag aside, reaches in, and pulls out a knife.

I stammer. And -- as you ought know by now -- I rarely stammer.

"That's not mine!" I say. "I mean, this is a goody bag from Ford. Ford gave it to me."

"You mean you don't know who packed your bag?!

Um.

He runs his finger up and down the serrated edge. It's a butter knife. He shrugs. "I don't have a problem with this," he said.

I joke weakly, trying to establish rapport: "Unless I'm going to butter someone to death." (Dying last words: "I can't believe it WAS butter!")

Finally I remember having taken my bags into the hotel diner that morning, sat on a tall stool at the counter with my bags on the floor below me, and opened a bundle of silverware wrapped in a cloth napkin -- flinging the silverware everywhere. It was a little embarrassing, so I pretended it never happened and grabbed the next roll of silverware, which I unwrapped more carefully. Why did I have to fling a knife into my bag rather than, say, a spoon? No one questions a spoon.

Once I realize this, I explain to the TSA officer why I had the Hotel Roosevelt diner's knife (even though he has already given me permission to proceed, knife in hand).

"It's a good thing you didn't have the steak and eggs," he says.