I’m packing up to head out to New Mexico for a few days before going to California on business. As I was getting ready, I pulled out the ashes of my dog, PigPen, which I intend to scatter in the Jemez Mountains. Pigger was a New Mexican, born in Algondones, and the Jemez were one of his favorite puppy places to frolick.
Then it dawned on me. Those ashes look … well … suspicious. Could they be anthrax? Some other nefarious powder? What would someone searching my luggage think?
So I wrote on the plastic baggie: “Ashes of dog. Pigpen. Just ashes.”
And I thought, maybe that’s not enough.
So I put a note in the bag with the ashes:
“These are the ashes of my dog, Pigpen. He was from N.M. & I’m going to scatter them there. Bob Benz.” I also included my cell phone number, and the two Delta flights I would be on en route to Albuquerque.
So sad, that it’s come to this. The talk of duct tape and plastic sheets. Fear that a dog’s ashes could prompt panic. And I started wondering if the terrorists have already won. They’ve rocked us to our core. We’re drifting from some of our dearest democratic principles in the name of stopping terrorism. And despite the lesson we should have learned in the ’70s, we continue to suck fossil fuels faster than a wino empties a bottle of Wild Irish Rose.
3 replies on “homeland insecurity …”
Upon his arrival at the gate, Benz was unfortunately tagged by the Federales.
In the spirit of the little boy who was made to drink untreated river water to prove it was not a nefarious substance, the newly deputized, federalized, and homogenized airport screener orders Benz to put the bag of ashes on the floor and make it do tricks. “Dogs do tricks,” the screener insists. “I’ve seen it on Letterman.”
Benz objects, on the grounds that if he’s going to be forced to do something absurd and ridiculous in public, he should at least be allowed to have a few drinks first. A resonable request. The screener, however, attributes Benz’s happy-go-lucky mindset to pure-D impudence, and un-American trickery. Benz is then forced to buckle a leash around the bag of ashes at gunpoint, and is last seen being led by a cadre of FBI and national guard to a small room off of Concourse B, the ashes in tow.
Yes, the terrorists have won. Security goons at Albuquerque International Sunport confiscated a pair of fingernail clippers Tuesday from the purse of my 65-year-old, Baptist, retired-school-teacher mother. Delta Airlines also cut the lock off her checked bag and rifled through her belongings: the sweatshirt with cats on it, a book of quilt patterns and a shaker knit sweater, in search of…? Duck and cover, America.
Stupid Dead Pet Tricks. Love it.
I wonder if that sweatshirt with the cats would be enough to get a drum roll from the world’s most dangerous band.