"Are you the pie lady?" the agent demanded.
Standing there in orange polka-dot socks, jeans inching down my hips, I nodded soberly. He indicated we'd have more to talk about on the far side of the metal detector.
When my pie emerged, the questions began.
"What kind of pie is that?" He squinted at the pan.
"Apple. With some raspberries."
"Does it have lumps?"
I glanced at the crust, which was black in places and looked like a topographical rendering of the Himalayas. (To think I was trying to impress my boyfriend's parents in Illinois with this thing.)
"Yes, lots of lumps."
"Does it have" -- he paused -- "a gel filling?"
Alarms blared in my brain. They sounded like the familiar kitchen smoke detector. What was he getting at?
"No." I shook my head. "None of that."
...
He told me he was keeping watch for pies with cream and custard fillings. Anything that could be construed as a "gel." He'd already turned away a pumpkin pie.
Pumpkin pie filling, he confided, "has the same consistency as certain plastic explosives."
...
A dozen Thanksgiving pies were confiscated last year at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. They were all donated to the airport's USO lounge, which serves traveling soldiers.
This year, the TSA introduced new holiday food rules to its Web site.
Gravy, cranberry sauce and soup can't go through a security checkpoint, though they can fly in checked baggage. (Squish!) Pies get a pass, but they "might be subject to additional screening."
...
"We don't discriminate from one pie or another. All pies can go through the security checkpoint," Melendez said. "Lemon meringue, pumpkin, apple; it's fine."
He reiterated, however, that pies may require "additional screening."
"You know the swabbing technique to screen for explosives?" he explained. "We could do that on the outside of the pie."
I'd like to see that, I thought.