Fight For Your Right...To Take Little Fish on an Airplane

by Ken Poirier - December 2008

As we approach the holiday season, many of us will be traveling by airplane. As you may well know, this sucks. So, when you are going "agro" at the terminal, keep the following in mind: Many of my friends are fishermen. Fishermen like to get drunk and debate things that don't make any sense or matter at all. Usually these discussions involve international waters and monkey knife fights. But this particular topic happens to have nothing to do with primates tearing at each other's flesh with sharpened instruments. This debate is over one simple question, is fish a liquid?

Now, when we first started this debate, we were using a 1980's science text book definition of a liquid. Which, if any of you went to school back then or earlier, would know the definition of a liquid as, "the state of matter at which it takes the shape of its container."∗

So, a fish would be a solid, as it would retain its own shape. But, fish (plural) would take the shape of its container, ie. 10,000 lbs of fish in the cargo hold of a ship. So if you had "fish" it should be considered a liquid. But, of course, spouting a bunch of jibber-jabber is a far cry from proving anything. There must be some kind of way to test this theory.

Enter the TSA. The end all, be all, authority on everything. The final word. They would be my judges. My defendant, a can of sardines. As soon as my backpack entered the x-ray machine, it was flagged for a hand check. This was going better than I had hoped. The TSA agent, a woman in her mid forties, reached into my bag and immediately produced the questionable substance. She looked it over once, then twice.

Now this particular TSA agent was new on the job. She had been hired for the extra holiday work load that was coming up. She had just recently finished her training on allowable items with a extra special extra training video on liquids, the hot new terrorist favorite since 2006. But, it seems Sardines was not one of the things specifically covered in her extra special extra training videos. No, it seemed this can of sardines was WAY out of her league. She had her supervisor come over. She handed her the tin of sardines. The supervision looked them over.

Beach Cliff sardines in Louisiana hot sauce are proudly made in the USA by Stinson seafood, inc. of South Portland, Main. The ingredients include: sardines, water, maltodextrin, acetic acid, salt, paprika, modified corn starch, spices, xanthan gum, spice extractives (including paprika), polysorbate 80, caramel color, natural and artificial flavors. The container weighs in at 3.75 oz (.25 oz over the allowable liquid amount by the TSA) and neatly packaged in an aluminum non-resalable container.∗∗

This mighty TSA agent had a decision to make. Not only did the fate of the entire security of our humble and most modest country rely on her reply, not only did the fate of my salty little fishy stack depend on her reply∗∗∗, but, the entire official future reference of the state of matter of multiple fish contained in a container at room temperature would be forever referenced back to this exact moment in history.

She looked at the can of sardines. She looked at me. She looked at her confused underling. She looked at me. She looked at the can of sardines. She looked at her watch. She then looked at the clock to verify the time. 9:15 pm. She knew this would be a moment that was forever marked in the history books of the USA for a long, long time. She looked back at the sardines, then me, then her confused underling. "It's fine," she said.

One of the greatest moments of scientific history in the United States, and the best thing she can manage to say is, "It's fine." Well, I guess that's why we call the TSA, "The final word" and not "the eloquent speakers of our time". But, had our education system allowed her to go to college, this is what I believe she would have said:

"Good people of the world. In our ever increasing state of heightened security, it becomes more and more difficult to see our way through the grays of shit you can and cannot take on a mother-fucking airplane. While everything we do here at the TSA may seem ridiculous, to not only the paying passengers, the airport staff, the media, the constitution of the united states itself, and last but not least, myself and my fellow TSA agents. I am glad this decision has been left to me to decide, for if it were not up to me, I would not have a job, and would not be able to pay my absurd rent, let alone buy Christmas presents for my children. Therefore, I am now instating my divine right by announcing: 'a liquid, or a liquid constant as it is referred to in the scientific community, is a fluid (as water) that has no independent shape but has a definite volume and does not expand indefinitely and that is only slightly compressible' and since sardines in Louisiana hot sauce lack an elastic membrane or meniscus, they are therefore not a liquid, but a group of solids. Thank you, Enjoy your flight, and sleep well tonight America."∗∗∗∗

∗ to better understand what a liquid is I recommend the Wikipedia definition at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquids

∗∗ to find out more about Beach Cliff Sardines visit www.beachcliff.info

∗∗∗ If the sardines had been confiscated they would have been held in a secret warehouse along with millions of other confiscated items seized by the TSA on a regular basis. They would be held there, without the representation of a lawyer until 2013-2014 where they would be found by a tribe of post apocalyptic mutants and then eaten.

∗∗∗∗ If our imaginary "smart" TSA agent happened to have a Masters or Doctorate she might have also pointed out that if these liquids were actual chemicals for making explosives, when taken and combined together in a group container, without each substance being tested by a professional chemist who specializes in explosive chemicals with a proper field kit or lab, then your chances of an explosion actually occurring increases by over 800%