TSA is ON the job...

I know a lot of people have been talking this holiday season about the new TSA guidelines that allow scissors and four inch knives into the passenger cabins of American planes and whether or not that actually is making us safer or putting us in danger of those folks who desparately need to wrap their gifts since they couldn't get through security with them wrapped....

Well, TSA has uncovered yet another potential threat to the American skies ~ domestic animals traveling in cargo areas.

Specifically, my eight pound half yellow tabby, half maine coon cat... She's not a particularly good traveler and even less of a people person. So we're at the Delta check-in, mind you I'm flying Delta so that I will be connecting through Atlanta and not Pittsburgh or Chicago or somewhere else my cat might freeze her tuckus off, and we're told that we have to wait for a TSA agent to check out my cat's box before I can leave her there. Now, the cat, who was not easily gotten into said box, has to come out in the main area of a very busy airport just a few days before Christmas, and she's really not having any of it. When I finally tug her out. Her expression is definitely one more of flight than fright. I have to keep a firm hold on her hind hips just to make sure she doesn't take off for another destination and this is no easy task.

When the TSA agent finally saunters over, heck, he's in no rush! He's all gloved up (which always just cracks me up.) He proceeds to reach into the box/cage and rifle through her padded bed and her little toys all the while checking on me to see if any of this makes me nervous. And then, before he lets me put the cat back into her little nest in the box, he actually pats down the cat, as if she might be carrying a concealed weapon?!?! She has teeth and claws, why would she need anything else? Why not check her for explosive residue?

You know, I have heard Al Qaeda is beginning to use cats. You know, because they're so easy to train and control and all. They have an entire herd of them just waiting to attack!!!!