Our Snow Globe Event-

I just posted my latest short story, Snow Globe Terrorist, over on my short story blog.

shortstoriesbymlockridge.blogspot.com

This is based on a real experience on our way home from Disneyland. My wife wanted to purchase an Alice in Wonderland tea pot for her mother. So, we popped into the store on Main Street in Disneyland on our way out on our final day. While there my wife spots a snow globe that she takes a liking to. Pirates of the Caribbean. Just a little last minute something.

So, off to the airport and the lines and security and all of that. Linda, my wife, has had her knees replaced and so has to be separately scanned prior to all flights. Profiling is not permitted. The fact that she is extremely unlikely to be a terrorist and that knee bombs have not yet come into vogue had no influence on this procedure. It is something we just put up with.

I am in line getting our carry on stuff. Or I would be doing so if it wasn't being held up by the x-ray operator. A second officer is called over and we go to a table and he apologetically begins poking through our stuff. He finds the target, which proves to be a heavily wrapped snow globe.

Yep. Clearly marked on the underside of the snow globe, in rather small print, is a notice stating that snow globes do not make very good carry on baggage. In fact, they are banned. I don't recall ever reading of a snow globe terrorist taking out a plane with a snow globe, but none-the-less our snow globe is destined for the landfill.

My wife is not giving up on this. Though we lost our snow globe we are going back to Disneyland in seven weeks. Not a special trip to spite the terrorists. It was a planned second trip. While there she plans on buying another of those dangerous items, and putting it in her checked luggage.

Take that, you damned snow globe terrorists!