Code Red (faced)

This summer I have accidentally-on-purpose smuggled a pocket knife on to four different airlines.

The knife is no Jim Bowie-sized blade. Just a pearl-handled antique job, a keepsake from my late father, who seemed to always have it with him. So I carry it around. Even, unwittingly, to the airport.

This inadvertant test of the nation's high-alert, beefed-up, airport security machine began with a 7 a.m. flight out of Bush to Baltimore via Atlanta.

The airport was deserted and we were sleepy, as were, apparently the guardians of our nation's airliners.

Approaching the first x-ray checkpoint, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a handful of coinage, a tin of Altoids, a pack of chewing gum and -- Oh My God -- the knife.

The car was miles away. The plane awaited. Confess? And have the beloved keepsake consigned to the Department of Transportation's Confiscated Weapons Smelter?

So I stuck the knife into the little plastic tray, along with the rest of my pockets' contents, and held my breathe as it traveled on the conveyor belt under the all-seeing eye of the x-ray machine.

Nobody said a word.

Minutes later, waiting at the gate, I confided to Scooter, my wife and assistant, of the illegal contraband.

Here, I said, put it in YOUR bag. It's got more stuff in it than mine. They'll be less likely to find it in yours.

Thanks a lot, she said.

At the gate, security picked all three of us out, me, Scooter and daughter Scout, for a more thorough once-over.

We took off our shoes. We opened our bags. We lifted our arms for the hand-held metal detector. We answered who won the World Series in 1989. (Just kidding).

Nothing was found to be amiss.

No problem in Atlanta, either.

Weeks later, again we're flying, this time out of Hobby, on the way to South Florida.

In a rush, per usual.

At the airport, I peek into the side pocket of my carry-on.

THE KNIFE!

It has been sitting in the side pocket of my bag since the last trip!

Again, the car was too far away.

And I couldn't pull the give-it-to-the-wife gambit again. She'd never let me forget it.

In my bag it stayed.

And it sailed through x-ray, then survived a cursory look-see into the bag by a female security guard.

But hold everything.

Scooter's been detained. They've taken an intense interest in her carry-on.

The security lady is really pawing through it, like a dog who smells varmint.

Then she finds it.

Out of the bag she pulls ... nail nippers!

She pulls them out of the bag and holds them up with thumb and forefinger, as if to announce, "A-HA!"

"You can't have these."

"Anything for the cause," Scooter says, raising her eyebrows.

Scooter collects her bag and walks through security.

"Do you feel safer?" she asks.

Hell, yeah, I say to myself. I have a freakin' knife!

Returning from Fort Lauderdale, we decide to check our bags this time. No way I'm going to risk the family heirloom by carrying a prohibited lethal weapon in my carry-on luggage.

If they got the nail nippers in Houston, surely the knife wouldn't survive another run through the heightened airport security apparatus of the nation's most powerful country.

But we got a little lost on the way to the airport.

No time to stand in line to check bags.

No choice but to carry our stuff on, knife included.

The initial pass through the x-ray machine occurs without incident. The knife remains nestled in a side pocket of the carry-on, amid a mound of coins, a telephone cord, an electric razor, a cell phone charger, and a half dozen packages of unopened Southwest Airlines peanuts, expiration dates unknown.

Not so fast.

They pull me out of line.

We can't tell what some of these items are, sir. We have to check the bag.

He begins pulling stuff out. A cell phone charger, a telephone wire, some socks...

My heartrate quickens.

I'm gonna lose the knife. The knife my Old Man carried in his pocket for years and years.

What a dope I am.

Jeeezuu...

"OK, sir, have a good trip."

"OK?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, OK then."

"Have a good flight, sir."

"Well, O-Kay."

The flight went well, which is to say we didn't crash or get hijacked.

The illegally smuggled knife was ready to be wielded at any moment should someone, anyone, try to storm the cockpit.

No one did, but you never know what some bad guy may have smuggled on board.